Compact class AB CMOS current mirror

Current mirrors are, together with differential pairs, the most common analogue building blocks in modern analogue and mixed-signal integrated circuits. Desirable features of current mirrors include: low standby power dissipation, wide input and output current swings, low supply voltage requirements, accurate current copy, and high linearity. Conventional class A topologies are unable to achieve simultaneously low quiescent power consumption and wide current swings, since they have maximum input and output currents limited by the DC bias currents. To overcome this shortcoming, class AB current mirrors have been proposed, which feature maximum currents not limited by the quiescent currents and reduced sensitivity to process tolerances [1]. Unfortunately, the additional circuitry required to achieve class AB operation often increases supply voltage requirements. For instance, the most common approach to achieve a class AB CMOS current mirror requires stacking of two MOS gate?source voltages [2]. This additional circuitry also often increases standby power consumption and adds extra intrinsic capacitances at the internal nodes. Another common issue is that quiescent currents are often dependent on supply voltage, process variations or temperature [2]. Other approaches are based on SC dynamic biasing [3], requiring the generation of two non-overlapping clock signals and suffering from charge injection errors.     

Enhanced source-degenerated CMOS differential transconductor

A simple technique to improve the output resistance and the linearity of a source-degenerated differential CMOS transconductor is presented, useful even under low supply voltage. It combines the utilization of a super-transistor as a unity-gain buffer and the use of the weak inversion region to optimize a regulated cascode source. Using a standard 0.13 μm CMOS technology with 1.5 V supply voltage, simulation results show the transconductor attains more than 1 GΩ as differential output resistance and a third-order harmonic distortion factor less than −110 dB at 1 kHz for a 0.35 V_pp differential input signal. Other performances are 126 μW power consumption and 65 MHz bandwidth.     

A Modified CMOS Balanced Output Transconductor with Extended Linearity

A new CMOS balanced output transconductor is presented. The circuit is based on applying the dynamic biasing technique on the floating current source to extend its linearity range. The difference in the biasing currents is compensated to maintain the two output currents balanced by subtracting it at the output nodes. The proposed transconductor is suitable for high frequency applications requiring a wide dynamic range. Rail-to-rail operation is achieved with THD of –33.64 dB. The bandwidth achieved by the transconductor is 240 MHz, and the supply voltage used is ±1.5 V.     

Low-voltage/low-power transconductors with extremely large dynamicrange and low distortion

A new class of configurations for linear low-voltage/low-power transconductors is presented. With a single supply voltage of 1.0 V, a dynamic range of >100 dB within the audio bandwidth is feasible. The linearity exceeds 99% within an input voltage between -9 and +9 times the thermal voltage. Owing to class-AB operation the quiescent power consumption is extremely low. A special biasing technique, called `indirect biasing' ensures stable biasing and large PSSR     

Post-linearization with image rejection for high IIP3 and image-rejection ratio of a 17 GHz CMOS low noise amplifier

This study develops a post-linearization technique to simultaneously improve the input third-order intercept point (IIP3) and image-rejection ratio (IRR) of a 17 GHz low noise amplifier (LNA) in a 0.18 μm standard CMOS process. A third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) compensator constructed by a second-order notch filter was proposed to achieve both high linearity and image reject (IR) of the cascode LNA. The correlation between the post-linearization and IR techniques is analyzed and discussed. The measured LNA achieved a gain of 16.5 dB, a noise figure (NF) of 4.58 dB, an IIP3 of 0 dBm, and an IRR from 68 to 78 dB. The improvements of IIP3 and IRR are 11.7 and 46 dB, respectively, better than that of the LNA without the notch filter. The proposed IR LNA with total current dissipation of 4.8 mA under 1.8 V supply voltage and notch filter only dissipate a DC power of 2 mW.     

Power-efficient class AB CMOS buffer

A novel class AB unity gain voltage buffer is proposed. It is based on the use of quasi-floating gate (QFG) techniques in a super source follower topology. The circuit achieves dynamic current boosting with accurate control of quiescent currents and without penalty in supply voltage requirements or quiescent power consumption. Measurement results of the circuit, fabricated in a 0.5 mm CMOS technology, show a slew-rate enhancement by a factor 18.5 against the conventional super source follower, for the same bias current and supply voltage.     

High linearity technique for ultra-wideband low noise amplifier in 0.18 μm CMOS technology

A linearization technique for ultra-wideband low noise amplifier (UWB LNA) has been designed and fabricated in standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The proposed technique exploits the complementary characteristics of NMOS and PMOS to improve the linearity performance. A two-stage UWB LNA is optimized to achieve high linearity over the 3.1-10.6 GHz range. The first stage adopts inverter topology with resistive feedback to provide high linearity and wideband input matching, whereas the second stage is a cascode amplifier with series and shunt inductive peaking techniques to extend the bandwidth and achieve high gain simultaneously. The proposed UWB LNA exhibits a measured flat gain of 15 dB within the entire band, a minimum noise figure of 3.5 dB, and an IIP3 of 6.4 dBm while consuming 8 mA from a 1.8 V power supply. The total chip area is 0.39 mm², including all pads. The measured input return loss is kept below −11 dB, and the output return loss is −8 dB, from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz.     

Class AB output stage for low voltage CMOS op-amps with accuratequiescent current control

A new class AB output stage for CMOS op-amps, with accurate quiescent and minimum current control, is proposed. The proposed stage can be operated with a supply voltage close to the threshold voltage of the transistor. A dynamic biasing scheme allows it to operate over a wide range of supply voltages. Simulation results are provided that are in good agreement with expected values     

Bulk-driven class AB fully-balanced differential difference amplifier

This paper presents a new low-voltage class AB fully-balanced differential difference amplifier (FB-DDA) employing the bulk-driven technique. At the FB-DDA differential pairs the bulk terminal of the MOS transistors are used as signal inputs in order to increase the common-mode input range under low supply voltage. At the class AB output stages the bulk terminal of the MOS transistors are used as control inputs in order to adjust the quiescent currents and compensate them against the process and temperatures (P/T) variation. The voltage supply of the FB-DDA is 0.7 V and the quiescent power consumption is 8.3 µW. The open loop voltage gain is 68 dB and the gain–bandwidth product is 168 kHz for 10 pF capacitive load. The circuit performance was simulated in Cadence/Spectre environment using the TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS process.     

Low power and high gain current reuse LNA with modified input matching and inter-stage inductors

In this paper we present a fully integrated current reuse CMOS LNA (low noise amplifier) with modified input matching circuitry and inductive inter-stage architecture in 0.18 μm CMOS technology. To reduce the large spiral inductors that actually require larger surface area for their fabrication, two parallel LC circuits are used with two small spiral on-chip inductors. Using cascode configuration equipped by parallel inter-stage LCs, we achieved lower power consumption with higher power gain. In this configuration we used two cascoded transistors to have a good output swing suitable for low voltage technology compared to other current reuse configurations. This configuration provides better input matching, lower noise figure and more reverse isolation which is vital in LNA design. Complete analytical simulation of the circuit results in center frequency of 5.5 GHz, with 1.9 dB NF, 50 Ω input impedance, 1 GHz 3 dB power bandwidth, 20.5 dB power gain (S₂₁), high reverse isolation (S₁₂)<−48 dB, −18.5 dB input matching (S₁₁) and −21.3 dB output matching (S₂₂), while dissipating as low power as 2 mW at 1.8 V power supply.     

On the use of body biasing to improve linearity in low LO-power CMOS active mixers

In a radio-frequency (RF) transceiver, the linearity of the mixer has a profound effect on the overall transceiver performance. In many RF transceivers, active mixers are used due to their higher gain which also improves the overall receiver noise figure. In a typical RF active mixer where the transistors in the LO stage switch abruptly, most of the nonlinear distortions come from the transconductance or RF stage and thus the linearity of the mixer can be enhanced by proper design of the RF stage. In low-power receivers, however, to reduce the power consumption of the local oscillator (LO) circuit, the amplitude of LO signal is low and thus the switching of the transistors in the LO stage of the mixer is gradual. In this paper, we propose a technique to improve the linearity of such low-power mixers by enhancing the linearity of the LO stage. In particular, body biasing is utilized in the LO stage to improve the linearity. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique, two proof-of-concept double-balanced down-conversion active mixers have been designed and fabricated in 0.13-µm CMOS. The maximum IIP3 of +2.7 dBm and −4.9 dBm at a conversion gain of 13 dB and 16 dB are achieved for the first and second prototype respectively. For a 2.4 GHz RF input signal and an intermediate-Frequency (IF) of 50 MHz, the first prototype consumes 2.4 mW from a 1.2 V supply while the second one consumes only 780 µW from a 0.7 V supply.     

A power efficient and simple scheme for dynamically biasing cascode amplifiers and telescopic op-amps

A simple dynamic biasing scheme to extend the input/output range of cascode amplifiers is introduced. It requires minimum extra hardware and no additional power consumption. A dynamic biased telescopic op-amp is discussed as an application example. Experimental results of a fabricated test chip in 0.5 μm CMOS technology are presented that verify the proposed technique.     

A New CMOS Rail-to-Rail Low Distortion Balanced Output Transconductor

This paper presents a new CMOS transconductor providing low distortion for rail-to-rail signals. The circuit is based on using the anti-phase common source topology with the floating current source to extend its linearity range. The difference in the biasing currents of the floating current source is compensated to maintain the two output currents balanced by subtracting it at the output nodes. The proposed transconductor is suitable for applications requiring wide dynamic ranges. Rail-to-rail operation is achieved with THD less than –37 dB. The bandwidth achieved by the transconductor is 67.5 MHz using a supply voltage of ±1.5 V.     

A fully-differential OTA based on CMOS cascode inverters operating from 1-V power supply

A low voltage operating fully-differential CMOS OTA construction, which uses dual-input CMOS cascode inverters, is proposed. The OTA is a two-stage configuration with dual-input CMOS cascode inverters at the input stage, and traditional CMOS inverters in the output stage, with a common-mode feedback path from the output terminals to one of the input terminals of cascode inverters. In order to effectively reduce its threshold voltages by bulk bias technique, the OTA has been designed and fabricated by using a 0.15 μm triple-well CMOS process. The OTA successfully operated from 1-V power supply, with 59 dB of differential voltage gain, 80.9 dB of CMRR and 25 MHz of unity gain frequency, at 60 μA of current consumption.     

Class AB Output Stages for Low Voltage CMOS Opamps with Accurate Quiescent Current Control by Means of Dynamic Biasing

Two new class AB output stages for CMOS op-amps are proposed with accurate quiescent current control. The second proposed stage also provides accurate control of the minimum current through the output transistors. The proposed stages can be operated with a supply voltage close to a transistor threshold voltage. A dynamic biasing scheme allows them to operate in a wide range of supply voltages. Using these stages two opamps have been designed using a 0.8 m CMOS technology. Experimental results show a unity gain frequency of 15 MHz with 290 A of quiescent current and a 10 pF load, using a 1.5 V single voltage supply.     

Low-Voltage Super class AB CMOS OTA cells with very high slew rate and power efficiency

A simple technique to achieve low-voltage power-efficient class AB operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) is presented. It is based on the combination of class AB differential input stages and local common-mode feedback (LCMFB) which provides additional dynamic current boosting, increased gain-bandwidth product (GBW), and near-optimal current efficiency. LCMFB is applied to various class AB differential input stages, leading to different class AB OTA topologies. Three OTA realizations based on this technique have been fabricated in a 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. For an 80-pF load they show enhancement factors of slew rate and GBW of up to 280 and 3.6, respectively, compared to a conventional class A OTA with the same 10-/spl mu/A quiescent currents and /spl plusmn/1-V supply voltages. In addition, the overhead in terms of common-mode input range, output swing, silicon area, noise, and static power consumption, is minimal.     

High slew rate current mode transconductance error amplifier for low quiescent current output-capacitorless CMOS LDO regulator

This paper presents a CMOS low quiescent current output-capacitorless low-dropout regulator (LDO) based on a high slew rate current mode transconductance amplifier (CTA) as error amplifier. Using local common-mode feedback (LCMFB) in the proposed CTA, the order of transfer characteristic of the circuit is increased. Therefore, the slew rate at the gate of pass transistor is enhanced. This improves the LDO load transient characteristic even at low quiescent current. The proposed LDO topology has been designed and post simulated in HSPICE in a 0.18 µm CMOS process to supply the load current between 0 and 100 mA. The dropout voltage of the LDO is set to 200 mV for 1.2–2 V input voltage. Post-layout simulation results reveal that the proposed LDO is stable without any internal compensation strategy and with on-chip output capacitor or lumped parasitic capacitances at the output node between 10 and 100 pF. The total quiescent current of the LDO including the current consumed by the reference buffer circuit is only 3.7 µA. A final benchmark comparison considering all relevant performance metrics is presented.     

A CMOS transconductor with multidecade tuning using balanced current scaling in moderate inversion

A versatile CMOS transconductor is proposed. Voltage-to-current conversion employs a polysilicon resistor and features high linearity over a wide input range and high current efficiency. Programmable balanced current mirrors able to operate in weak or moderate inversion regions provide wide transconductance gain tuning range without degrading other performance parameters like input range and linearity. The transconductor has two degrees of freedom for gain tuning. A 0.5-/spl mu/m implementation achieves a SFDR of 68 dB and a THD of -66.5dB using a dual supply of /spl plusmn/1.3 V with differential input swings equal to 77% of the total supply voltage, transconductance tuning over two decades, and 1.7 mW of static power consumption. Measurements demonstrate that operation in moderate inversion can lead to much less distortion levels than in strong inversion.     

Sub 1-V highly-linear low-power class-AB bulk-driven tunable CMOS transconductor

This paper describes the design and realization of a sub 1-V low power class-AB bulk-driven tunable linear transconductor using a 0.18-μm CMOS technology. The proposed transconductor employs a class-AB bulk-driven differential input voltage follower and a passive resistor to achieve highly linear voltage-to-current conversion. Transconductance tuning is achieved by tuning the differential output current of the core transconductor with gain-adjustable current mirrors. With 10.4-μA current consumption from a 0.8-V single power supply voltage, simulation results show that the proposed transconductor achieves the total harmonic distortion (THD) of <?40 dB for a peak differential input voltage range of 800 mV at frequencies up to 10 kHz. The simulated input-referred noise voltage integrated over 10-kHz bandwidth is 100 μV, resulting to an input signal dynamic range of 75 dB for THD <?40 dB. A biquadratic G_m-C filter is designed to demonstrated the performance of the proposed transconductor. At the nominal 10-kHz cut-off frequency, the filter dissipates 34.4 μW from a 0.8-V supply voltage and it achieves an input signal dynamic range of 67.4 dB for the third-order intermodulation distortion of <?40 dB.     

A novel ultra-high compliance, high output impedance low power very accurate high performance current mirror

In this paper a novel ultra-high compliance, low power, very accurate and high output impedance current mirror/source is proposed. Deliberately composed elements and a good combination (for a mutual auto control action) of negative and positive feedbacks in the proposed circuit made it unique in gathering ultra-high compliances, high output impedance and high accuracy ever demanded merits. The principle of operation of this unique structure is discussed, its most important formulas are derived and its outstanding performance is verified by HSPICE simulation in TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS, BSIM3 and Level49 technology. Simulation results with 1 V power supply and 8 μA input current show an input and output minimum voltages of 0.058 and 0.055 V, respectively, which interestingly provide the highest yet reported compliances for current mirrors implemented by regular CMOS technology. Besides an input resistance of 13.3 Ω, an extremely high output resistance of 34.3 GΩ and −3 dB cutoff frequency of 210 MHz are achieved for the proposed circuit while it consumes only 42.5 μW and its current transfer error (at bias point) is the excellent value of 0.02%.