1. Introduction
Wearable healthcare systems require analog front-end circuits that are power-efficient, compact, and capable of advanced signal conditioning. These circuits must reliably acquire weak, noisy biosignals such as electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), or electromyogram (EMG), under strict physical and energy constraints. Conventional linear circuits, built from operational amplifiers and passive components, often lack the adaptive behavior needed for dynamic noise filtering or intelligent gain control without increasing complexity and power drawing. This challenge has motivated the exploration of neuromorphic engineering, which mimics the efficient, adaptive nature of biological neural processing. A key element in this field is the memristor, a theoretically predicted passive component whose resistance depends on the history of the time integrals of current (charge) and voltage (flux), making it inherently adaptive and memory driven [
1].
Despite their promise, physical memristors are not yet widely available in standard semiconductor processes [
2]. As a practical alternative, memristor emulators built from conventional CMOS components allow researchers to explore novel circuit architectures today. Most existing emulator designs, however, rely on multiple active blocks such as operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) or analog multipliers [
3,
4,
5,
6]. These designs tend to consume significant power, occupy large areas, and require careful tuning, making them suited for ultra-low-power biomedical applications. There remains a clear need for a simpler, more integrable memristor emulation core that aligns with the demands of wearable and implantable medical electronics.
Recent research in memristor emulation has strategically pivoted toward minimalist, transistor-efficient designs that reduce complex active components. The objective is to create emulator circuits that are inherently suitable for low-power, low-voltage operation and easier integration into system-on-chip designs, particularly for portable applications. This movement is characterized by a deliberate effort to minimize the number of active devices, leveraging instead the intrinsic nonlinearities of transistors operating in specific regimes. Several notable designs exploit MOSFETs in the subthreshold region to achieve the necessary exponential current–voltage relationships with minimal static power. Other approaches utilize the body terminal as a control node, as seen in designs employing the dynamic threshold MOS, DTMOS transistor. Babacan et al. introduced a grounded emulator topology requiring only four transistors, though its electronic tunability is constrained [
7]. Similarly, a compact floating emulator employing four transistors was reported, yet it lacks experimental verification and adjustable memory characteristics [
8]. A significant advance in high-frequency performance was achieved by Zhou et al., whose two-transistor floating emulator operates effectively up to 300 MHz [
9]. Additionally, alternative pathways utilizing passive and diode-based topologies have been explored. Corinto and Ascoli, for example, realized a floating memristive cell by integrating an RLC network with four diodes [
10]. A recurring constraint across several of these minimalist designs [
7,
10,
11,
12] is the absence of a simple, integrated method for the electronic adjustment of memductance. Other implementations prioritize functional accuracy over component count, as seen in Saxena’s design, which utilizes seven transistors and a biasing source to produce a well-defined pinched hysteresis loop at the cost of increased circuit complexity [
13].
Consequently, a highly attractive design methodology has emerged: constructing emulators exclusively from MOSFETs and a minimal complement of passive elements. This approach offers the compelling advantages of enhanced operating bandwidth, simplified layout, and reduced static power dissipation. Notable examples following this philosophy include the floating emulator by Vista and Ranjan, which combines three NMOS transistors with a capacitor and a DC source for operation up to 13 MHz [
14], and the fully passive, non-ideal memristor proposed by John et al., implemented with BJTs, diodes, capacitors, and resistors for kilohertz-range operation [
15]. Concurrently, the theoretical modeling of memristive devices is evolving, with contributions such as those by E. Gale extending the framework for non-idealities, including detailed descriptions of physical mechanisms like filamentary switching [
16,
17]. The refinement of CMOS-specific emulator circuits remains an active focus. Koymenn and Emmanuel developed a memristor exploiting weak-inversion operation, utilizing two log-domain transconductors and a grounded capacitor [
18]. Efforts toward greater compactness are illustrated in Vishal’s design, which employs seven MOS transistors, with specific types including PMOS, NMOS, and ZVT NMOS, alongside an external DC source [
19]. While the efforts in recent literature [
20] strongly favors reducing transistor count, these ultra-minimalist circuits frequently encounter inherent trade-offs involving silicon area, power efficiency, maximum frequency, and fabrication process sensitivity.
This paper introduces a novel floating memristor emulator circuit designed to directly address this need for integration low-power emulation. The proposed circuit, named the DTMOS-based memristor emulator (DMEC), is built around a minimalist topology requiring only two dynamic threshold MOS transistors and a single capacitor. In this configuration, the DTMOS devices, where the gate and body terminals are connected, leverage their inherent voltage-dependent threshold to generate the essential nonlinear resistance modulation. The capacitor serves as the integrating element, storing the state variable and ensuing the hysteretic feedback loop that defines memristive memory. By eliminating multi-transistor active blocks like OTAs or multipliers, this architecture achieves a significant reduction in both component count and static power overhead, making it inherently suitable for low-voltage operation and dense integration in system-on-chip designs.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 details the proposed emulator circuit, presenting its topology, operating principle, and comprehensive mathematical analysis.
Section 3 discusses the simulation and experimental results, validating the memristive characteristics and robustness of the design.
Section 4 presents a comparative analysis, discussion with prior works, and suggests directions for future research. Finally,
Section 5 concludes the paper and summarizes the key contributions.
2. The Proposed Memristor Emulator Circuit
This section details the proposed DMEC, outlining its topology and providing a foundational mathematical analysis to describe its operating principle.
The schematic of the proposed DMEC is illustrated in
Figure 1. The core of the circuit is a minimalistic and symmetrical structure employing two DTMOS transistors (Mp and Mn) and a single capacitor (C). The two DTMOS devices are configured in a complementary push–pull arrangement: Mp is a P-type (PMOS) device, and Mn is an N-type (NMOS) device. The interconnection forms a floating two-port network with terminals labeled A and B, which serve as the input/output ports for the memristive element. The topology is defined by the following critical connections: the source terminal of the PMOS-Mp and the drain terminal of the NMOS-Mn are connected to terminal A; the drain terminal of the Mp and the source terminal of the Mn are connected to terminal B; the gate terminals of both transistors are tied together, forming a common control node; and the capacitor C is connected between this common gate node and terminal B.
In this configuration, the capacitor serves as the state variable element, with its voltage (
) representing the internal memory of the memristor. The complementary DTMOS pair (Mp, Mn) acts as a voltage-controlled nonlinear resistor. They perform two essential functions: (1) they convert the applied voltage (
) into a current that charges or discharges capacitor C and (2) they modulate the effective resistance between terminals A and B based on the stored state
. The dynamic threshold behavior of the transistors, where the body is tied to the gate, is key to generating the necessary nonlinear, state-dependent current–voltage relationship. The fundamental operation of the DMEC can be derived from the DTMOS transistor characteristics. For a DTMOS device, the gate-to-body connection modifies the threshold voltage (
) to become a function of the gate-source voltage. The threshold voltage for the DTMOS devices, which governs their conduction, is given by [
21]:
where
is the zero-bias threshold voltage,
is the body-effect coefficient,
is the surface potential, and
is the source-to-body voltage. For the DTMOS configuration,
is intrinsically linked to the gate potential, creating the desired feedback mechanism between the state variable
(across capacitor C) and the channel conductivity.
The operating principle of the proposed DMEC can be explained by analyzing the conduction cycles of the complementary DTMOS pair, Mp and Mn. For analysis, consider a sinusoidal voltage applied across the floating terminals. Let denote the voltage across the state capacitor , which is equivalent to the common gate-to-terminal B voltage ().
The generation of the pinched hysteresis loop in the proposed emulator stems from the complementary and asymmetric body-effect modulation of the two DTMOS transistors. During operation, Mp and Mn conduct alternately over the input cycle. In the positive half-cycle, terminal A is at a higher potential than B. In this phase, the Mp transistor is in a cut-off or high resistance state, while the Mn transistor is active, as shown in
Figure 2a. The capacitor voltage
dynamically adjusts the threshold voltage
of Mn through the DTMOS body effect. As
increases,
also rises but with a phase lag, effectively reducing the overdrive voltage
as the cycle progresses. This results in a decreasing channel resistance with increasing input voltage, producing a negative, counterclockwise, lobe in the
-
characteristic. Conversely, in the negative half-cycle, terminal B is at a higher potential than A. The roles of the transistors reverse. The Mn is now off, and the Mp becomes active, as depicted in
Figure 2b. Here, the body-effect of the Mp transistor operates in the opposite manner; the modulating
now causes the Mp channel resistance to increase with the magnitude of the negative input voltage, yielding a positive lobe. This alternating action creates the complete pinched hysteresis loop, where the pinch-point at the origin is preserved as both transistor currents approach zero when
. The observed lobe polarity is a direct consequence of the DTMOS architecture, where the state capacitor voltage couples into the transistor threshold in opposite ways for NMOS and PMOS devices. Thus, under a periodic input signal, Mp and Mn conduct alternately, controlling the charge and discharge of capacitor
and causing
to vary periodically with time. Crucially, in the DTMOS configuration, the capacitor voltage
directly controls both the gate-source voltage and the body-source voltage of each transistor. This dual control via the dynamic threshold effect creates a strong, nonlinear dependence of the transistor’s channel resistance on the state variable
. The equivalent memristance between terminals A and B is the series combination of the dynamically modulated resistances of Mp and Mn as they alternate conduction, resulting in the characteristic pinched hysteresis loop.
The proposed DMEC operates with complementary conduction: Mn is active during positive half-cycles (VAB > 0), while Mp is active during negative half-cycles (VAB < 0). Our analysis reveals that the active transistor in each half-cycle traverses three distinct operating regions. Linear region operation dominates the mid-range of each half-cycle, where the voltage–current relationship is most linear and the memristance modulation is strongest. As the input voltage approaches its peak, the transistor enters the saturation region, where VDS exceeds the overdrive voltage. Near the zero-crossing, the transistor operates in subthreshold conduction, with VGS close to VTH and currents exponentially small. During the opposite half-cycle, the transistor is in cut-off, ensuring proper complementary operation of the push–pull configuration. The mathematical derivation presented in this section employs the linear region approximation as a simplifying assumption to obtain analytical insight into the memristive behavior. This approximation is justified for several reasons. First, the linear region captures the essential voltage-controlled resistance behavior that underlies the memristive effect. In the linear region, the drain current is proportional to VDS, creating the direct relationship between voltage and current that enables memristance modulation. Second, the contribution from the saturation regions occurs primarily at the lobe tips of the hysteresis loop. In saturation, the current becomes relatively independent of VDS, which affects the exact shape of the lobe tips but does not alter the fundamental memristive characteristics, pinched hysteresis, frequency dependence, and state retention. Third, subthreshold conduction near the zero-crossing has negligible impact on the overall behavior, as currents in this region are exponentially small. Consequently, despite the presence of saturation and subthreshold regions, the core memristive behavior is preserved. The memristor’s defining fingerprint, pinching at the origin, is maintained because the current approaches zero as the voltage approaches zero.
Because the circuit operation is symmetrical between the positive and negative half-cycles, the analysis for one half-cycle suffices. Consider the positive half-cycle with terminal B as the reference, ground. Additionally, the two DTMOS transistors Mp and Mn operate alternately in the linear region to modulate the channel resistance, controlled by the state voltage
across capacitor
. For analysis, as the terminal B is taken as ground reference (
), thus
and
. The threshold voltage for the Mn transistor is as follows:
For small
, this can be linearized using a first-order Taylor approximation, as follows:
A similar expression holds for the PMOS (M1) with parameters and .
The transistors are assumed to operate in the linear region when active. Thus, the drain current for Mn can be expressed as follows:
where
,
, and
during the positive half-cycle.
The core of the proposed DMEC behavior is the dynamics of the state voltage . The capacitor is charged or discharged by a current that is a function of the terminal voltage and the state itself. This current originates from the body-effect coupling in the DTMOS structure.
During the positive half-cycle (
), Mn is active. The change in
is governed by the capacitive current flowing into the common gate/body node. This current is proportional to the time derivative of the threshold voltage, which depends on
through the body effect. Applying charge conservation at the gate node yields the following:
Here,
(where
) is a coupling coefficient that accounts for the fraction of the channel current that contributes to changing the body/gate potential via the body-source capacitance and the forward-biased body-source diode in the DTMOS configuration. This term links the terminal current to the state evolution, a key feature of memristive systems. Substituting the linearized threshold voltage Equation (3) into Equation (5) gives the following:
This is a first-order nonlinear differential equation for the state variable
driven by the input
. The terminal current
during the positive half-cycle is the drain current of Mn, as follows:
The memductance
is defined as
. For a sinusoidal input
, and assuming the amplitude
is small such that the quadratic term
is negligible compared with the linear term, the memductance simplifies to the following:
This shows that the memductance is linearly controlled by the state voltage .
To find
, we solve the state Equation (6). Under the same small-signal assumption and ignoring the
term, Equation (6) becomes the following:
This is a linear time-varying differential equation. For high frequencies where
cannot follow the instantaneous input, we look for a quasi-steady-state solution. Integrating over a half-cycle and considering the periodic nature, the average effect yields a solution where
contains a DC component
and a phase-shifted component at frequency
, as follows:
where
is the equilibrium voltage around which
oscillates and
is a small offset determined by the circuit’s operating point.
Substituting Equation (10) into Equation (8) gives the following, final expression for memductance:
This can be written more compactly as follows:
where
is the constant memductance offset and
is the amplitude of the time-varying memductance.
Equation (12) reveals the frequency-dependent behavior critical to memristor emulation. The time-varying component is inversely proportional to the input frequency . Therefore, at low frequencies, is small and is large, resulting in a significant modulation of resistance within one cycle and a wide pinched hysteresis loop. As frequency increases, shrinks. The memductance variation diminishes. In the high-frequency limit (), . The memductance converges to the constant and the emulator behaves as a linear resistor, . This is consistent with the fundamental property that a memristor’s hysteresis lobe area decreases with increasing frequency.
Furthermore, to determine the time constant, we define the ratio of the dynamic part to the static part of the memductance. From Equation (11), the ratio of the time-varying part to the static part is as follows:
Substituting
and using the approximation
, where
is neglected because
under normal operating conditions, we obtain the following:
Thus, the time constant can be expressed as follows:
During the negative half-cycle (), the Mp becomes active. A parallel analysis using PMOS parameters () yields a complementary expression for memductance. The alternating action of the NMOS and PMOS devices, each with its body-effect coefficient, generates the complete, symmetric pinched hysteresis loop characteristic of a floating memristor. The derived relationship , where is a function of the state variable which itself obeys a differential equation driven by and , satisfies the formal definition of a voltage-controlled memristor within the broader class of memristive systems. The analysis, therefore, provides a solid theoretical foundation for the emulator’s operation.
The mathematical derivation assumes linear region operation for the active transistor in each half-cycle. Detailed verification across the full 1.8 V peak input swing reveals that the active transistor operates in three distinct regions: linear region for approximately 45% of each half-cycle ( between 0.4 V and 1.2 V), saturation region near the voltage peaks ( > 1.2 V) for approximately 33% of the half-cycle, and subthreshold conduction near zero-crossing ( < 0.4 V) for approximately 22% of the half-cycle. Despite this complexity, the linear region approximation successfully captures the essential memristive behavior. The saturation regions primarily affect the exact shape of the hysteresis lobe tips but do not alter the fundamental memristive fingerprints, pinched hysteresis, frequency-dependent lobe contraction, and state-dependent resistance modulation. The subthreshold region near zero-crossing contributes negligibly to the overall behavior due to exponentially small currents.
4. Comparison and Discussion
This section provides a comparative analysis of the proposed two-DTMOS memristor emulator with notable recent works in the literature, as summarized in
Table 1. The comparison focuses on key metrics for practical integration: circuit complexity, operating performance, and power efficiency. Circuit complexity, directly impacting silicon area and parasitic effects, is affected by the number of active and passive components. As
Table 1 illustrates, the proposed DMEC employs only two MOSFETs, configured as DTMOS, and one capacitor, representing one of the most minimalist topologies reported. This contrasts with several designs requiring three [
16,
21,
23,
24,
25] or four [
14,
15,
19,
20,
22,
26,
27] transistors, often with additional resistors [
18,
28] or more complex capacitor networks. The reduction to two active devices is achieved by exploiting the DTMOS transistors to perform dual functions: they act as both the state-dependent variable resistor and the control switches for the capacitor. This intrinsic multifunctionality eliminates the need for separate biasing or control stages, significantly simplifying the layout and enhancing its suitability for dense, low-power integrated systems, such as biomedical sensor arrays.
Performance is evaluated based on operating frequency, functional configurability (floating/grounded), and experimental validation. The proposed DMEC demonstrates a competitive maximum operating frequency of 500 MHz in simulation, aligning with high-performance designs like [
24] (50 GHz, though grounded) and exceeding many in the 10–150 MHz range [
12,
22,
25,
27,
33]. This high-frequency capability stems from the minimalist topology, which reduces internal node parasitics. Furthermore, the DMEC is verified as a floating emulator, a more versatile and challenging configuration than a grounded one, as it can be inserted anywhere in a circuit without a fixed bias reference. Additionally, the work is validated through both simulation and experimental measurement, confirming its practical viability, a step not always taken in works reporting very high frequencies [
28,
29].
Power consumption is a critical metric for wearable and implantable applications. The DMEC is designed for zero static power consumption, as it requires no external DC bias voltages or currents; it is driven solely by the input signal. This passive operating principle places it among the most power-efficient designs in the comparison, such as those of [
20,
23,
24,
25,
28,
32], which also report zero or negligible static power. It notably outperforms emulators that consume power in the µW to mW range [
9,
22,
27,
30,
31,
33]. The achieved combination of zero static power, two-transistor complexity, and high-frequency floating operation is a distinctive advantage of the proposed architecture.
The comparative analysis establishes that the proposed DMEC occupies a competitive position in the multi-dimensional design space defined by component count, operating frequency, and power efficiency. Unlike prior works that often optimize for a single metric, such as ultra-high frequency [
24] or exceptionally low power [
33], this work delivers a balanced and a combination of key advantages. Specifically, the proposed architecture achieves a simultaneous minimization of active components and static power consumption (zero bias), while maintaining a high operating frequency of 500 MHz and providing the flexibility of floating operation. These performance characteristics are not only simulated but are validated by experimental measurements from a discrete prototype. Consequently, this minimalism, power efficiency, high maximum operation frequency, and versatility render the DMEC an exceptionally suitable candidate for integration into the analog front ends of next-generation, resource-constrained systems, such as wearable and implantable biomedical monitors, where silicon area, energy budget, and adaptive signal conditioning are critical constraints.
The promising results of this work motivate focused future research to transition the DMEC from a discrete emulator to an integrated, system-ready component for biomedical electronics. The primary objective will be the design and fabrication of the emulator in a dedicated CMOS microchip. A full-custom integrated circuit will achieve true area efficiency, as the two DTMOS transistors and a MOS capacitor can be realized in an extremely compact layout, likely occupying very low area. This minimal footprint ensures that the emulator adds negligible area overhead to a complete biosensor interface chip. System-level research will then target integration into ultra-low-power analog front-end architectures for specific biomedical modalities. The DMEC can be integrated at multiple points within a typical biomedical analog front-end to provide adaptive functionality. At the input stage, the DMEC can be placed in series with the electrode to provide dynamic impedance matching for long-term monitoring applications such as EEG and ECG, where electrode–skin contact impedance can vary due to sweating, movement, or drying of conductive gel. The DMEC’s memristance automatically adjusts based on the signal history, compensating for these impedance variations and mitigating motion artifacts without requiring additional control circuitry, improving signal quality while maintaining the zero-static-power advantage of the emulator. In the amplification stage, the DMEC can replace a fixed resistor in the feedback network of an instrumentation amplifier to provide automatic gain control. As the input signal amplitude varies from μV-range EEG signals to mV-range ECG signals, the DMEC’s memristance automatically adjusts, eliminating the need for power-hungry control loops. In the filtering stage, the DMEC can be integrated into active filter topologies to create adaptive frequency response. By replacing a resistor with the DMEC, the cutoff frequency becomes , where is the memductance, allowing the filter bandwidth to adapt to the signal’s frequency content, narrowing when noise is present and widening when faithful signal reproduction is needed. For EEG applications, this enables adaptive notch filters that can track and reject time-varying power-line interference (50/60 Hz), while for ECG processing, it allows the filter bandwidth to adjust based on heart rate variations.
Beyond direct signal conditioning, the DMEC can also be employed to implement a tunable ring oscillator for on-chip clock generation in biomedical systems. By replacing a fixed resistor in the oscillator circuit with the DMEC, the oscillation frequency becomes dependent on the memristance value, enabling several critical functions. First, programmable sampling rates allow the ADC sampling frequency to be dynamically adjusted based on input signal characteristics, higher sampling rates for detailed analysis of transient events, and lower rates for power saving during idle periods. Second, adaptive clock generation enables the system clock to self-tune to optimal frequencies for different operational modes, reducing power consumption when full performance is not required. Third, in wireless biomedical implants, the DMEC-based oscillator can modulate the carrier frequency for data transmission, with the memristance controlled by the biosignal itself. Fourth, the zero-static power characteristic makes the DMEC ideal for always-on wake-up receivers that monitor for incoming signals while consuming minimal power. This tunable oscillator implementation is particularly valuable in ultra-low-power biomedical devices where clock generation must be both energy efficient and adaptable to varying operational requirements. Furthermore, exploring the circuit’s behavior in networked configurations presents a compelling direction for neuromorphic engineering. Connecting multiple DMECs to form small-scale synaptic arrays could enable the investigation of more complex functions such as pattern learning, temporal signal processing, and computing. This would evolve the component from a standalone memristor emulator into a foundational building block for brain-inspired computing systems, opening new possibilities for hardware implementation of neural networks and adaptive signal processing architectures.