Abstract: Compared to circuits utilizing voltage or current to convey analog signals, time-based circuits offer unique attributes, ranging from simple, area efficient quantization to more complex techniques for time-based processing such as integration, interpolation, and noise shaping. Although time-based circuits are not new, the availability of fast, low-power transistors in advanced process nodes, combined with the challenges of traditional analog design techniques, has renewed interest in time as a signal domain both in academia and in industry. This talk will look at some obvious and more subtle differences between voltage and time-based circuits, and discuss tradeoffs in the context of application requirements. A few advanced state-of-the-art time-based circuits will motivate the audience to consider how time-based circuits can be a useful tool for their own designs.
