Performance assessment of "field programmable analog arrays"

Field Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) are reconfigurable analog modules introduced on the electronic market in the last decade. Their working and, in particular, their programmability is achieved owing to the use of switched capacitors technology. At least in principle, they seem to be a very attractive and powerful tool to design analog circuits whose parameters have to be tuned to signal variations as in carrying out sensor conditioning systems. But, the aim of exploiting their possibilities in the field of metrology requires a complete characterization and performance assessment of the involved building blocks. With this goal, in the paper, the metrological characterization of the most commonly blocks to be used in analog conditioning circuits, such as amplifiers and filters, is performed. These blocks have been characterized in terms of both frequency response and step response and the obtained experimental results have been compared with the ones expected from theoretic analysis. Concluding remarks are then deduced to furnish practical hints in the use of FPAAs in measurement applications.