An ultrasound circuit comprising a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) with built-in time gain compensation functionality is described. The TIA is coupled to an ultrasonic transducer to amplify an electrical signal generated by the ultrasonic transducer in response to receiving an ultrasound signal. The TIA is, in some cases, followed by further analog and digital processing circuitry.

Numerous embodiments for processing the current output of a vector-by-matrix multiplication (VMM) array in an artificial neural network are disclosed. The embodiments comprise a summer circuit and an activation function circuit. The summer circuit and/or the activation function circuit comprise circuit elements that can be adjusted in response to the total possible current received from the VMM to optimize power consumption.

Disclosed herein is an amplifier, comprising: an op-amp configured to receive at an input thereof a first electric current; a first MOS capacitor connected to the input and an output of the op-amp.

A reference voltage generating circuit includes: an operational amplifier including a first input terminal connected to a first node and a second input terminal connected to a second node; a first transistor connected between a ground terminal and the first node, wherein a first current flows in the first transistor; a second transistor connected to the ground terminal; and a first variable resistor connected between the second transistor and the second node, wherein the first variable resistor has a first resistance value for adjusting the first current, based on a change in a current characteristic of the first transistor caused by a variation in a process of forming the first transistor. The reference voltage generating circuit provides a reference voltage, based on a voltage of the first node and a voltage across the first variable resistor.

An amplifier for a receiver circuit is disclosed. The amplifier has an input node (V.sub.in) and an output node (V.sub.out). It comprises a tunable tank circuit connected to the output node (V.sub.out), a feedback circuit path connected between the output node (V.sub.out) and the input node (V.sub.in), and a tunable capacitor connected between an internal node of the feedback circuit path and a reference-voltage node. A receiver circuit and a communication apparatus is disclosed as well.

In optical receivers, extending the transimpedance amplifier's (TIA) dynamic range is a key to increasing the receiver's dynamic range, and therefore increase the channel capacity. Ideally, the TIA requires controllable gain, whereby the receiver can modify the characteristics of the TIA and/or the VGA to process high power incoming signals with a defined maximum distortion, and low power incoming signals with a defined maximum noise. A solution to the problem is to provide TIA's with reconfigurable feedback resistors, which are adjustable based on the level of power, e.g. current, generated by the photodetector, and variable load resistors, which are adjustable based on the change in impedance caused by the change in the feedback resistor.

According to one embodiment, a signal processing circuit includes a first voltage setting circuit that sets a reference voltage on an input side of an isolator, a variable gain amplifier circuit that amplifies an output signal of the isolator, a DC offset adjustment circuit that adjusts an offset of the variable gain amplifier circuit, a second voltage setting circuit that sets a reference voltage on an output side of the isolator, and a control circuit that controls the DC offset adjustment circuit in response to a result of comparison of an output voltage of the variable gain amplifier circuit with an output voltage of the second voltage setting circuit.

An ultrasound circuit comprising a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) with built-in time gain compensation functionality is described. The TIA is coupled to an ultrasonic transducer to amplify an electrical signal generated by the ultrasonic transducer in response to receiving an ultrasound signal. The TIA is, in some cases, followed by further analog and digital processing circuitry.

An ultrasound circuit comprising a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) with built-in time gain compensation functionality is described. The TIA is coupled to an ultrasonic transducer to amplify an electrical signal generated by the ultrasonic transducer in response to receiving an ultrasound signal. The TIA is, in some cases, followed by further analog and digital processing circuitry.

An amplifier assembly (100) includes an amplifier (102) having an input terminal, an output terminal and a feedback terminal; a first feedback path connecting the output terminal to the feedback terminal; a second feedback path connecting the output terminal to the feedback terminal; a switch (124) positioned in the second feedback path, the switch (124) opening or closing in response to a voltage at the output terminal relative to a breakpoint, when the switch (124) is open, the amplifier assembly (100) has a first gain and when the switch (124) is closed, the amplifier assembly (100) has a second gain; and a thermally variable element (152) connected to the switch (124), the thermally variable element (152) configured to generate a compensation voltage to maintain the breakpoint in response to varying temperature of the switch (152).