Recent Advances in Energy-Efficient and Temperature-Resilient Sensor Interfaces

The rapid growth of power-constrained applications, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables, demands sensor interfaces with high accuracy and reliability. A fundamental design challenge arises as their performance is severely limited by thermal drift within the analog front-end (AFE) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) circuits. To address this, this article reviews two principal strategies: 1) the development of robust voltage and frequency reference circuits and 2) the implementation of on-chip temperature calibration. The review covers state-of-the-art temperature-compensated voltage references, such as subthreshold and BJT/MOS hybrid architectures, as well as stable frequency references based on LC and RC time constants. Furthermore, it examines advanced sensor interfaces that integrate on-chip temperature sensors for real-time error correction, featuring recent case studies on current sensor designs. These comprehensive advances are crucial for enabling reliable, energy-efficient sensor interfaces intended for precision-critical applications.