A New Sensor for Temperature Self-Protection of Integrated Circuits in CMOS Technology

In this paper, it is presented a new temperature sensor designed for self-protection of Integrated Circuits (IC). This sensor mainly prevents damages caused by heating which can lead to burning or malfunctioning of electronic devices. The main objective is to create a small-area low-power consumption protection circuit that operates independently of an external circuitry and self-protects the IC against heating, in a temperature range of −20°C to 120°C. The sensor was designed using Cadence Virtuoso employing the System on a Chip (SoC) concept, for a standard 180nm CMOS technology to operate with a power supply voltage of 1.2V. The results show an effective sensor protection for a temperature range of −40°C to 140°C, which exceeds the range originally specified. The new designed circuit can be used as an excellent protector against heating of an IC.