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DOI: 10.5923/j.eee.20120205.09
Chair of M etrology and Electronics, AGH-University of Science and Technology, Krakow, 30-059, Poland
Abstract Sensitiv ity of electronic circuits to co mponent tolerances has been the topic of many papers[5],[6],[9],
discussing sensitivity analysis tools, but seldom they give advices how without many preparations perform practical analysis
of a circu it which is not provided for mass-production. And this is often the case in the field of measuring transducers, which
sometimes are design to be used in one unique application in various fields of research. This paper presents practical
emp loyment of the Monte Carlo analysis to compare sensitivity of different structures of electronic converters to component
tolerances. The method enables to determine limit ing error of the structures and to point out the structure, which is less
sensitive to component tolerances. Although the way the Monte Carlo analysis has been used is far from optimal and requires
redundant simulations it can be employed strait away at any stage of the converter designing process without being involved in
complicated calculations, or additional programming. It uses ready made, commercially available software built in most of circuit
analysis programs. E.g. the working demo version of MICROCAP, which is free for students and university staff, has been used
in this case. Although the demo version has limits in its applications, is usually sufficient for most of the cases.
Keywords Monte Carlo Analysis, Co mponent Tolerances, Simu lat ion
most of the circuit analysis programs, seems to be reasonable chosen component values would include the case, which
solution to help designer of electronic transducer, at least, to determines the highest value of the structure limiting error.
select most pro mising circuit structure, when its sensitivity When number of simulat ions increases the probability of an
to components tolerances is taken into consideration. The event that the worst combination is taken into account rises.
other approaches are far too laborious to be used, as even to To determine probability of that event Bernoulli theorem can
formulate the conversion function of the circuit is quite a be used.
tedious task, and evaluate expression of total derivative is When an electronic device or instrumentation converter
prohibitively co mplicated. It can be seen in the case of very consists of L co mponents of given tolerances and the each
simp le circuits, analysis of which are presented e.g. co mponent parameter value can take only the "border
in[5],[9],[15]. value" (maximu m or min imu m) it means that only N = 2 L
The Monte Carlo analysis, as such, can be performed possible values have to be taken into account. Probability p
assuming various distributions of component values within of an event that one of N configurations exists in one
the specified tolerance. The Gaussian distribution is seldom simu lation is equal p=1/N. Probability that in K attempts (K >>
used, as taking into account the component selection method N) at least one chosen configuration of elements values can be
used by manufacturers the uniform distribution is rather to be found, is given by (1):
expected[12]. K 0
P(S K ≥ 1) = 1 − P( S K = 0 ) = 1 − ( p ) ⋅ (1 − p )
K −0
=
In case of electronic instrumentation converters it is
0
important to evaluate their limiting error value and for such a K
(1)
task the Worst Case Monte Carlo analysis should be chosen. It 1
= 1 − 1 −
means that in each simulation all the components parameter N
values are chosen randomly, but only as border values from where: S K - nu mber of how many t imes in K simulat ions
the tolerance range. the worst-case parameters configuration is detected
The limit ing error values can be further used as a criterion Probability that in K trials all the co mponent values are
e.g. to compare and point out the circuit structure, which is taken into account is the N power of single component
less sensitive to component tolerances. combination probability according to (2):
Values of the component parameters can only be obtained N
within certain tolerance, wh ich affect the converter precision 1
K
P = [P(S K ≥ 1)]
N
i.e. causing certain error. Th is kind of error, further named as = 1 − 1 − (2)
N
the structure error, depends on values of the components
tolerances as well as the instrumentation converters In the case of only few co mponents the required number of
structure. simu lation runs, which secure ninety percent probability
Many electronic instrumentation converters, to perform a level that the worst case was found is given in Table 1.
given measuring task, can be built using different princip le
Table 1. Number of Simulation Runs, which Secure Ninety-percent
of operation i.e. using different circuit structures and Probability Level
different co mponents. Usually the value o f co mponent
parameters has to be chosen very precisely because it Number of Number of Number of simulations
determines accuracy of operation of the electronic transducer. components configurations runs (P>90%)
The same device, for instance the instrumentation amplifier,
can be built in two different ways. The question is, if it is 4 16 78
possible to select structure, which is less sensitive to 5 32 180
component tolerances, and therefore is more suitable for
6 64 407
given measurement application.
In this paper the linear rectifier circuit and the 7 128 906
instrumentation amplifier circuit have been compared as
examples to show how the Monte Carlo analysis can be Using formu la (2) to determine the required nu mber of
employed to find out the structure of electronic circuit, which simu lation runs to achieve reasonable confidence level it can
is more suitable to be used as instrumentation transducer. The be seen that the number rises very quickly with the number
Monte Carlo analysis offered by circuit analysis programs of parameters subject to random variations.
MICROCAP[4] has been used for it. There are mathematical methods[11] wh ich when used to
control the process of random variation can significantly
reduce the required number of runs if only the percentage
2. Using the Monte Carlo method yield of circuits provided for mass production is relevant.
This is not the usual situation in the case of
Monte Carlo analysis bases on multiple, but limited in instrumentation transducers where the worst-case
number, runs of circuit performance simulation with different performance of circuits is of prime importance and the tools
set of circu it co mponents values each time. So, the question for such analysis should be as simple as possible.
arises if in the amount of scheduled runs the set of randomly This is why it is more practical to use Monte Carlo
Electrical and Electronic Engineering 2012, 2(5): 297-302 299
package, as it is, available in the circuit analysis program to influence the performance of the circuits, to eliminate the
run simu lation e.g. 906 t imes in the case of 7 varying possible influence of operational amplifiers parameters they
elements instead of developing special software which could were replaced by the ideal models i.e. depended voltage
cover all possible elements combination in only 128 runs. sources of very h igh, independent of frequency gain, equal to
1015 [V/ V]. Resistors tolerance was chosen equal to 1%.
To compare these two structures the following defin ition of
3. Examples the conversion error was chosen (8).
+ 5
R1
-
R6 0
R4 1a 1 10 100 1000
R2 +
Str uctur e fr om fig. 1b
R5 30 δ [%]
R3 -
R7
25
R4
20
R2 1b 15
R1
+ 10
R3 R5
- 5
R6
+ 0
1 10 100 1000
-
Figure 2. Limiting error value as function of numbers of simulation runs
Figure 1. T wo equivalent structures of linear rectifier
Results of those simulations are shown in figure 2. On the
As the question was to find out how the resistor tolerances Y-axis the limiting (8) error value is shown, as the function of
300 Janusz Gajda et al.: Using M onte Carlo Analysis for Practical Investigation of
Sensitivity of Electronic Converters in Respect to Component Tolerances
the number of simu lations (N). After certain number of The Monte Carlo method has been used, in the similar way as
simu lations the error value reaches practically constant level, for the linear rect ifiers, to co mpare the sensitivity of CM RR
which can be considered as a proof that all (including the of both structures to resistor tolerances. As previously, the
worst one) passive elements combinations have been used. number of simulat ions runs was set according to the number
Limit ing error value for the structure in figure la is of resistors in the structure (Table 1).
estimated as 25.12% (for assumed 1% resistor tolerances) and For the amplifier structure in figure 3a, which is built of
for the structure in figure 1b is equal 10.84%. So, it is six resistors, more than 407 simulations have to be performed.
possible to state that the structure shown in figure 1b is less For the structure shown in figure 3b, built of four resistors only,
sensitive to resistor tolerances, although to obtain sensible level 78 simulations have to be carried out to achieve the same
of limiting error the resistors of much smaller tolerances should probability confidence level.
be used. For the simulations the AC analysis of the Micro Cap have
been used. Simulations were performed for d ifferent values
3.2 Compari ng Parameters of Two Different Structures of the amplifiers differential gain (Ad). CM RR values for
of Instrumentation Amplifiers Sensitivity to both structures have been calculated as the ratio of the
Component Tolerances differential gain to the highest common gain value. To
Instrumentation amplifiers can also be built in d ifferent calculate the differential gain value for the both structures the
configurations. Two possible different structures are shown equations (4) and (5) was used respectively.
in figure 3a and 3b respectively. As only sensitivity of the Results of the simulat ions are shown in figure 4 as the
structures parameters to passive element tolerances is relation between the CM RR and differential gain Ad. Fro m
investigated, as previously the ideal models of OpAmps have the graph it is possible to state that the CMRR of the two
been used. Opamp structure (figure 3b) is less sensitive to resistor
The differential gain of the structure in figure 3a is given tolerances.
by formula (4),[1],[3], Another important feature of any instrumentation
R R amp lifier is its differential gain value. To study how the
Ad = 6 ⋅ 1 + 2 2 (4) differential gain of both amplifier structures depends on
R4 R1
resistor tolerances again the Monte Carlo analysis of the
if the following conditions are fulfilled : Micro Cap have been used.
R2 = R3 ; R5 · R6 = R4 · R7 25000
The resistor R1 value sets the amplifier gain. CMRR
3 Opamp structure
+
+ 3a 20000 2 Opamp structure
R3
-
U2 U1 - R4
R2 15000
R1 R5
10000
+
U1 R7
- 3b 5000
R3 R5
+
+ R4 - 0
R6
U2 R1
- 0 200 400 600 800 1000
R2 Ad
Figure 3. T wo different structures of instrumentation amplifiers Figure 4. The smallest values of CMRR for two different structures of
instrumentation amplifiers
The differential gain of the amplifier for the structure
shown in fig figure 3b is given by (5). As the reference the theoretical gain Adi given by
R4 R formulae (4) and (5) have been used, and gain error was
Ad =+1 +2 4 (5) calculated by using expression (6), where Adw denotes the
R3 R5
gains values obtained during Monte Carlo simu lations
under the condition: Adw − Adi
R2 · R4 = R1 · R3 =δ ⋅100% (6)
The R5 resistor value sets the amplifier gain.
Adw
One of the most important features of any instrumentation The largest value of δ i can be interpreted as absolute
amplifier is its ability to reject common input signal (CM RR). limit ing error of the gain for the given structure. The relation
Electrical and Electronic Engineering 2012, 2(5): 297-302 301
between the relative error value of differential gain and the number of simu lations depends on the type of the circuit and
theoretical differential gain value is shown in the figure 5. required number of simu lations.
Fro m the graphs it is possible to state that the differential As an examp le of p ractical emp loyment of the method
gain of the structure built of two OPAMPS (figure 3b) is comparative sensitivity analysis of two possible structures of
more immune to resistor tolerances than the structure of linear rectifier has been presented. The results make possible
three OPAMPS (figure 3a) for differential gain values to state that the structure shown in figure 1b is less sensitive
smaller then 10[V/ V]. For the differential gain values greater to component tolerances, and therefore mo re suitable to be
than 10, the structure built of three OPAMPS is less sensitive used as measuring converter.
to the resistor tolerances. Another example, concerning instrumentation amplifier
δ[%]
20 performance, shows that the structure presented in figure 3b
3 Opamp structure
is less sensitive to resistor tolerances when CMRR, and
differential gain, larger than ten, is taken into account. For
2 Opamp structure
16 smaller d ifferential gains, its value seems to be less sensitive
for the structure presented in figure 3a.
Fro m our experience we can say that the total simulat ion
time never exceeds a few hours, for each circuit, even when
12
more then 500 simu lations runs have been performed.
Moreover, many simu lations, wh ich were carried out, p roved
that realization of as many simulat ions as equation (2)
8
requires for 90% probability confidence level is usually
sufficient.
4
0
REFERENCES
1 10 100 1000 [1] Charles Kitchin, Lew Counts, “A designer's guide to
Ad instrumentation amplifiers”, Analog Devices, Inc. 2000.
Figure 5. Limiting error of differential gain [2] Daniel H. Sheingold, “Nonlinear circuits handbook” ,Analog
Devices, Inc. Norwood, M assachusetts 02062 U.S.A., 1976.
[11] Robert Spence, Randeep Singh Soin, “ Tolerance Design of [14] Steven M . Sandler, “A Comparison of Tolerance Analysis
Electronic Circuits”, Imperial College Press 1977. M ethods”, (1998) AEi Systems, LLC. Online Available:
www.ema-eda.com
[12] Ray Kendall, “Worst Case Analysis M ethod for Electronic
Circuis and Systems to Reduce Technical Risk and Improve [15] Andrew G. Bell, “Risk Assesment of a LM 117 Voltage
System Reliability”, Intuitive Research and Technology Regulator Circuit Design Using Crystal Ball and M initab”,
Corporation. Apr. 2007. (2006) Online Available: www.robustdesignconcepts.com
[13] Robert Boyd, “Tolerance Analysis of Electronic Circuits
Using M ATHCAD”, CRC Press Sept. 1999.