Design of a high precision chip for detecting electric arc

A novel kind of chip which is used in high precision and low cost arc detection circuit (leakage detection included) was designed. Based on CSMC´s 0.5pm process, the pad is specially designed to produce a specific capacitor. Cascode current mirror and trimming capacitors are used to generate a precise timing signal. High speed, large bandwidth and low offset op-amps with rail to rail output stage are used to realize the function of precise amplification of the current information. The chip is designed and simulated on the platform of Cadence. The experimental result shows that the chip can detect arc which is wider than 150ns and generate the corresponding interrupt signal.