Sub-Video Analog Chaotic Oscillator IC (Monolithic Chua´s Circuit)

Team: Manuel Delgado-Restituto and Angel Rodríguez-Vázquez

Date: 1993

The possibility to engineer electronic circuits that display controllable, deterministic chaos has drawn significant research attention. For instance, the inherent unpredictability of deterministic chaos has been used to design improved white and colored noise generators, as well as for the generation of secure random number time-series. The randomness of chaos has also proven useful to improve the noise performance of switched-capacitor modulators, making these circuits operate in chaotic regime. Chaotic circuits also exhibit potential applications in nonlinear signal processing and neural computation. On one hand, the inherent robustness of chaotic synchronization can be exploited for signal encryption and secure communications. On the other, the fact that chaos has been identified to be behind the sensory information processing performed by natural nervous systems, motivates looking for artificial neural network paradigms based upon chaotic neurons, in an attempt to better emulate living beings.

In today's electronic systems economic reasons dictate the convenience of having all component parts integrated on common silicon substrates, instead of breadboarded using off-the-shelf components. In this scenario, and before the potentials of chaotic circuits can be exploited into future marketable instrumentation, communication, and computing systems, it must first be demonstrated that chaos can be generated in a controllable and robust form using monolithic circuits, preferably in standard VLSI technologies. This chip is the first worldwide monolithic realization of a set of continuous-time chaotic equations.

More details are available in the following papers:

References:

1. [Delg93] M. Delgado-Restituto and A. Rodríguez-Vázquez: "A Monolithic Implementation of the Chua´s Circuit". Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers, Vol. 3, pp. 259-268, March 1993.
2. [Rodr93] A. Rodríguez-Vázquez and M. Delgado-Restituto: "CMOS Design of Chaotic Oscillators using State Variables". IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems, Vol. 40, pp. 596-613, October 1993.

Images List:

• Figure 1: Chip Microphotograph

• Figure 2: Experimental Family of Characteristic Curves for the Nonlinear Resistor

• Figure 3: Measured Atractors

• Figure 4: Pin Configuration

• Figure 5: Example of Configurations