Electronically Adjustable Grounded Memcapacitor Emulator Based on Single Active Component with Variable Switching Mechanism

Abstract

New current mode grounded memcapacitor emulator circuits are reported in this pa-per, based on a single voltage differencing transconductance amplifier-VDTA and two grounded capacitors. The proposed circuits possess a single active component matching constraint, while the MOS-capacitance can be used instead of classical capacitance in a situation involving the simulator working within a high frequency range of up to 50 MHz, thereby offering obvious benefits in terms of realization utilising an IC-integrated circuit. The proposed emulator offers a variable switching mechanism—soft and hard—as well as the possibility of generating a negative memca-pacitance characteristic, depending on the value of the frequency of the input current signal and the applied capacitance. The influence of possible non-ideality and parasitic effects was analysed, in order to reduce their side effects and bring the outcome to acceptable limits through the selection of passive elements. For the verification purposes, a PSPICE simulation environment with CMOS 0.18 µm TSMC technology parameters was selected. An experimental check was performed with off-the-shelf components-IC MAX435, showing satisfactory agreement with theoretical assumptions and conclusions.