A Low Power Carbon Nanotube Chemical Sensor System

This paper presents an energy efficient chemical sensor system that uses carbon nanotubes (CNT) as the sensor. The room-temperature operation of CNT sensors eliminates the need for micro hot-plate arrays, which enables the low energy operation of the system. The sensor interface chip is designed in a 0.18 mum CMOS process and consumes, at maximum, 32 muW at 1.83 kS/s conversion rate. The designed interface achieves 1.34% measurement accuracy over 10 kOmega -9 MOmega dynamic range. The functionality of the full system, including CNT sensors, has been successfully demonstrated.