This paper presents a fully integrated 32-MHz relaxation oscillator (ROSC) capable of sub-1-µs start-up time operation for low-power intermittent VLSI systems. The proposed ROSC employs current mode architecture that is different from conventional voltage mode architecture. This enables compact and fast switching speed to be achieved. By designing transistor sizes equally between one in a bias circuit and another in a voltage to current converter, the effect of process variation can be minimized. A prototype chip in a 0.18-µm CMOS demonstrated that the ROSC generates a stable clock frequency of 32.6 MHz within 1-µs start-up time. Measured line regulation and temperature coefficient were ±0.69% and ±0.38%, respectively.

An equalizer initialization technique for least mean squares (LMS) algorithm, which can equalize frequency selective multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channels, is presented and analyzed. The proposed method conducts an initial convergence step for superior training prior to running the LMS algorithm. This approach raises the training performance while the complexity of the LMS algorithm, which is known as the simplest training algorithm, is almost the same. The proposed technique is analyzed for the initial convergence and simulated for a possible single carrier MIMO application in single carrier (SC) IEEE802.16-2004 standards. The obtained performance after coding approximates the performance of the recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm as it is presented for 33 and 55 MIMO for comparisons.