An MOS Digitally Controlled Analog Attenuator for Voiceband Signals

This paper describes the design of an analog attenuator integrated circuit having loss settings that can be determined by remote digital control. The circuit uses a weighted MOS capacitor array to effect losses of 0-16.5 dB in steps of 0.1 dB. Each loss setting is accurate to ± 0.02dB. Two approaches to the circuit realization are described: a CMOS version that includes a digital memory to permit retention of loss settings for a few hours, thereby bridging brief power failures, and a more compact NMOS version that contains all the analog components on a single chip.