An OTA-based Large-Scale Field Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) for faster On-Chip Communication and Computation

We focus on investigating large-scale FPAA topologies capable of high-frequency routing by building structures to avoid speed limitations of the routing fabric, while carefully considering the consumed power constraints. We approach this problem by building a special FPAA IC based on transconductance amplifiers to investigate the potential speed improvements over existing large-scale FPAA techniques with similar amplifier designs. This approach uses multiple levels of OTA based routing and computation to demonstrate the potential of these approaches combined with more traditional switch matrices. We present experimental results from an IC of 200 OTA devices fabricated in a 0.35 mum CMOS process available through MOSIS. Initial experimental results show a range of working filter topologies which can operate with corner frequencies up to 15 MHz.