A CMOS voltage buffer with slew-rate enhancement

A high slew-rate CMOS voltage buffer has been presented in this article. The slew-rate enhancement is achieved by an embedded driver stage activated by internal nodes in the voltage buffer through capacitive coupling. The capacitive coupling provides one-shot auto-off feature for the driver stage. Therefore, the drive stage can be turned off automatically after activation. The auto-off feature of the proposed driver stage guarantees a reliable operation. The proposed voltage buffer is implemented in a commercial 0.35-μm CMOS technology. The active chip area is 345 μm × 246 μm. The single supply voltage is 3.3 V, and the quiescent current is about 7 μA. When the proposed buffer drives a capacitive load of 220 pF, the measured positive and negative slew rates are 0.714 and 1.548 V/μs, respectively. The improvement corresponds to about 22 times for the positive slew rate and 48 times for the negative slew rate when comparing with the voltage buffer without the proposed the slew-rate enhancement circuit.     

Design of low-power analog drivers based on slew-rate enhancement circuits for CMOS low-dropout regulators

Low-power analog driver based on a single-stage amplifier with an embedded current-detection slew-rate enhancement (SRE) circuit is presented. By developing a systematic way to design both the response time and optimal sizing of driving transistors in the SRE circuit, the SRE circuit can be controlled to turn on or turn off properly. In addition, the analog driver only dissipates low static power and its transient responses are significantly improved without transient overshoot when driving large capacitive loads. Implemented in a 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS process, a current-mirror amplifier with the current-detection SRE circuit has achieved over 43 times improvement in both slew rate and 1% settling time when driving a 470-pF load capacitor. When the proposed analog driver is employed in a 50-mA CMOS low-dropout regulator (LDO), the resultant load transient response of the LDO has 2-fold improvement for the maximum load-current change, while the total quiescent current is only increased by less than 3%.     

A wide-band, low-power, high slew rate voltage-feedback operationalamplifier

A wide-band low-power voltage-feedback operational amplifier on a 3 GHz, 40 V complementary bipolar technology is described. The class AB input stage takes advantage of some current-boost transistors which enhance and linearize the slew-rate during large-signal operation without increasing the power consumption. The triple-buffered output stage provides 100 mA of load current maintaining good linearity. Since the circuit design and technology development were concurrent, several different circuits were stepped into one wafer to fully characterize the process and identify the best product candidates. The low-current version of this chip has a quiescent current of 2.5 mA, 2000 V/μs slew rate and gain bandwidth of 110 MHz. The medium-current version draws only 6.5 mA of current at the same supply voltage while the slew rate increases to 3500 V/μs and bandwidth to 210 MHz. Both parts are operational from +/-2.75 V to +/-18 V supply range. Die size is 51 mils by 76 mils on a poly-emitter CB process     

Embedded capacitor multiplier gain boosting compensation for large-capacitive-load three-stage amplifier with slew rate enhancement

An embedded capacitor multiplier gain boosting compensation (ECMGBC) technique with slew rate enhancement circuit is presented in this paper for a three-stage amplifier. The ECMGBC technique pushes the non-dominant complex poles of the amplifier to high frequencies for gain-bandwidth product (GBW) extension under low quiescent current. In addition, the proposed slew rate enhancement circuit improves the transient responses of ECMGBC amplifier without any problem of oscillation. The ECMGBC amplifier has been designed and simulated in a 0.35-µm mixed signal CMOS process. From the post-simulation results, the amplifier driving a 1,000-pF capacitance achieves a 1-MHz GBW with a phase margin of 60° by consuming 13.5-µA quiescent current. The total compensation capacitance is only 1.2 pF. The transient responses are simulated when the amplifier is in unity-gain non-inverting configuration with a 0.6-V step input at a 2-V supply. The 1 % settling time is 1.1 µs for a 1,000-pF load capacitance. Compared with previously reported works, the ECMGBC amplifier achieves good figures of merit. Moreover, the ECMGBC amplifier obtains a very high ratio of load capacitance to total compensation capacitance.     

Low-power high-slew-rate CMOS buffer amplifier for flat panel display drivers

A new high-slew-rate CMOS buffer amplifier consuming a very small quiescent current is proposed. This buffer amplifier recursively copies the output driving current and increases the tail current of the input differential pair during slewing. Since the proposed buffer has a possible slew rate higher than 10 V//spl mu/s for a load capacitance of 1 nF almost independently of static currents as low as 1 /spl mu/A, this buffer amplifier is promising for column driver ICs of flat panel displays that require low static power consumption, high current driving capabilities, and small silicon areas.     

A capacitor-free CMOS LDO regulator with AC-boosting and active-feedback frequency compensation

A capacitor-free CMOS low-dropout(LDO)regulator for system-on-chip(SoC)applications is presented.By adopting AC-boosting and active-feedback frequency compensation(ACB-AFFC),the proposed LDO enhancement circuit is adopted to increase the slew rate and decrease the output voltage dips when the load current is suddenly switched from low to high.The LDO regulator is designed and fabricated in a 0.6/am CMOS process.The active silicon area is only 770×472μm2.Experimental results show that the total error of the output voltage due to line variation is less than ±0.1 97%.The load regulation is only 0.35 mV/mA when the load current changes fromoto 100mA.     

Process corner detection by skew inverters for 500 MHZ 2×VDD output buffer using 40-nm CMOS technology

A PVT detection and compensation technique is proposed to automatically adjust the slew rate of a high-speed 2×VDD output buffer. Based on the detected PVT (Process, Voltage, Temperature) corner, the output buffer will turn on different current paths correspondingly to either increase or decrease the output driving current such that the slew rate of the output signal is adaptive. The proposed design is implemented using a typical 40 nm CMOS process to justify the slew rate compensation performance. By on-silicon measurements, the data rate is 500/460 MHz given 0.9/1.8 V supply voltage with a 20 pF load. Particularly, the maximum slew rate improvement is 8%, the core area of the proposed design is 0.052×0.254 mm², the maximum slew rate is 0.53 (V/ns), and the area overhead is only 31% for one single output buffer.     

10 μA Quiescent Current Opamp Design for LCD Driver ICs

This paper examines the design considerations for an opamp to be used in a low-power consumption LCD driver IC: (1) slew rate enhancement suitable for a rail-to-rail input stage; (2) improved phase compensation with reduced compensation capacitance; and (3) limitation of instantaneous current consumption. The experimental results support our opamp design approach and indicate the feasibility of 10 A quiescent current opamp.     

Reduction of pump current mismatch in charge-pump PLL

A charge pump that minimises the mismatch between the charging and discharging currents and keeps the currents constant across a wide output voltage range is described. The improved current matching helps reduce the static phase offset and reference spur of a chargepump phase-locked loop (PLL) and the constant currents help control the PLL dynamics precisely. The proposed charge pump with dual compensation circuits demonstrates current mismatch of less than 3.2% and pump-current variation of 1.7% over the output voltage ranging from 0.2 to 1.0 V in the 0.13 μm CMOS process with 1.2 V supply.     

Slew-Rate-Controlled Output Driver Having Constant Transition Time Over Process, Voltage, Temperature, and Output Load Variations

A slew-rate-controlled output driver having a constant transition time irrespective of environmental variations is described in this brief. The proposed output driver employs a capacitive feedback between the output and input of the driver to allow its transition time independent of process, voltage, temperature and output load variations. The proposed output driver was designed and fabricated using a 0.13-mum CMOS process. According to our experimental results, the normalized variation on transition time of the proposed output driver due to PVT variations was improved by 74%-80% as compared to the conventional output driver. The comparison result also indicates that the normalized variation on transition time due to output load change from 10 to 100 pF (10 times variation) in typical process, voltage and temperature corners was improved by up to 66%.     

一种具有预驱动电路的低抖动LVDS驱动器

传统LVDS驱动器由于电源不稳定、驱动器与传输线之间阻抗不匹配等不良因素的影响,输出波形会出现抖动,质量下降.在传统LVDS驱动器的基础上,设计了一种新颖的LVDS驱动电路.该电路采用预驱动技术,控制输出电压的翻转和减少总输入电容,输出波形较为平滑.采用0.18μm工艺对电路进行仿真.结果显示,电路输出波形摆幅为0.345 V,输出共模电压为1.17V,总输入电容为72 fF.     

A 2-Gbaud 0.7-V swing voltage-mode driver and on-chip terminatorfor high-speed NRZ data transmission

A large-swing, voltage-mode driver and an on-chip termination circuit are presented for high-speed nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) data transmission through a copper cable. The proposed driver with active pull-up and pull-down can generate a 700-mV signal to deliver a 2 Gbaud serial NRZ data stream. Low output impedance offered by simple negative-feedback resistors alleviates the detrimental effect of the parasitic capacitance by supplying fast current impulses. A proposed on-chip termination circuit provides termination impedance to a mid-supply termination voltage with the benefit of reduced parasitic capacitance and better termination characteristics compared with off-chip termination. The driver and termination circuits have been incorporated in a 2 Gbaud transceiver chip and fabricated in 0.35 μm CMOS technology. Measurements show a 1.4 V differential swing with a slew rate of 2.5 V/ns at the receiver output and a 65% reduction of reflection by the on-chip termination circuit with power consumption of 191 mW at 3.3 V supply     

A multistage amplifier technique with embedded frequencycompensation

A new multistage operational amplifier topology requires only N-2 embedded compensation networks for N gain stages. The compensation circuits do not load the output stage, and noninverting gain stages are not required as in previous multistage approaches. Consequently, high gain, wide bandwidth, fast slewing, and excellent power efficiency are achieved. A low-power resistance-capacitance compensation technique assures stability and fast settling over process, voltage, and temperature variations. Implemented in a 0.6-μm n-well CMOS process, a single ended three-stage prototype dissipates 6.9 mW at 3.0 V with 102 dB gain, 47 MHz bandwidth, and 69 V/μs average slew rate with 40 pF load     

A Slew Controlled LVDS Output Driver Circuit in 0.18 $mu$m CMOS Technology

This article presents a power-efficient low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) output driver circuit. The proposed approach helps to reduce the total input capacitance of the LVDS driver circuit and hence relaxes the tradeoffs in designing a low-power pre-driver stage. A slew control technique has also been introduced to reduce the impedance mismatch effect between the output driver circuit and the line. The pre-driver stage shows a total input capacitance of 50 fF and also controls the voltage swing and common-mode voltage at the input of the LVDS driver output stage. This makes the operation at low supply voltages using a conventional 0.18 $muhbox{m}$ CMOS technology feasible. The output driver circuit consumes 4.5 mA while driving an external 100 $Omega $ resistor with an output voltage swing of $V_{OD} = $400 mV, achieving a normalized power dissipation of 3.42 mW/Gbps. The area of the LVDS driver circuit is 0.067 ${hbox{mm}}^{2}$ and the measured output jitter is $sigma _{rms} = $4.5 ps. Measurements show that the proposed LVDS driver can be used at frequencies as high as 2.5 Gbps where the speed will be limited by the load $RC$ time constant.      

An adjustable output driver with a self-recovering Vpp generatorfor a 4M×16 DRAM

This paper describes an adjustable output driver with a self-recovering Vpp generator for a 4M×16 DRAM. Its driver characteristics can easily be switched between fast and slow modes in the assembly process. With a small inductance load, the driver operates 2.5 ns faster in fast mode than in slow mode. In slow mode, this driver reduces the initial drive current and prevents ringing waveforms even with a large inductance load. For example, with a 5-pF capacitance load and a 20-cm wire, the ringing amplitude in slow mode is reduced to 1/3 of fast mode. Users can select the output driver operating mode that best suits their application. The self-recovering Vpp generators feed 16 output drivers and control the generator capacity according to the data pattern to supply the exact amount of Vpp charge consumed by the output drivers. The Vpp generator saves 3.9 mA on average in 25-ns read cycle     

A rail-to-rail, constant gain, buffered op-amp for real time videoapplications

Inspired by Hogervorst et al's current switch idea, a buffered output stage operational amplifier was designed, which has high frequency, high dc gain, and rail-to-rail constant transconductance (G _m). This operational amplifier is the output stage of an analog/digital system which implements a Gabor convolution for real-time dynamic image processing and it is designed to interface the external analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a very heavy load. The op amp was fabricated by the MOSIS service in a 2-μm, n-well CMOS, double polysilicon, double metal technology. The fabricated circuit operates from a single 5 V power supply and dissipates 10 mW. The open loop-gain of the fabricated circuit, A_vol, was measured as 67.2 dB for a 163 Ω∥33 pF load. Other dc and ac characteristics were measured for a 50 Ω∥33 pF load. The unify gain-bandwidth (GBW) was measured to be 11.4 MHz, the rising slew rate (SR+) 20.4 V/μs, the falling slew rate (SR-) 18.8 V/μs, and the offset voltage (V_off) 1 mV. The output swings with an amplitude of 3.24 V between 0.88 V and 4.12 V, which matches the input signal specifications of the ADC. In addition to rail-to-rail output voltage swing, the opamp has a constant G_m over the whole common mode (CM) voltage range     

Analogue control of the slew-rate in LIN bus digital transitions using translinear circuits

A novel technique to control the LIN (Local Interconnect Network) bus slew-rate transitions in automotive environment, where large fluctuations of the battery voltage are present, is reported. A bipolar translinear circuit generates a non-linear current that is used to modulate a MOS relaxation oscillator, producing a clock frequency that delivers a constant number of pulses during the LIN bus digital signal transition. This frequency modulated clock when applied to a digitally controlled analogue wave-shape driver results in a LIN bus digital transition with a slew-rate that is constant and independent of the car battery voltage. Experimental results measured in an IC implemented in a BiCMOS process showed that constant slew-rate transition of 1?±?2% V/??s is obtained for battery voltages varying from 6 to 40 V, over the temperature range of ?40 to 150°C.     

A dual-path bandwidth extension amplifier topology with dual-loop parallel compensation

A dual-path amplifier topology with dual-loop parallel compensation technique is proposed for low-power three-stage amplifiers. By using two parallel high-speed paths for high-frequency signal propagation, there is no passive capacitive feedback network loaded at the amplifier output. Both the bandwidth and slew rate are thus significantly improved. Implemented in a 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS process, the proposed three-stage amplifier has over 100-dB gain, 7-MHz gain-bandwidth product, and 3.3-V//spl mu/s average slew rate while only dissipating 330 /spl mu/W at 1.5 V, when driving a 25-k/spl Omega///120-pF load. The proposed amplifier achieves at least two times improvement in bandwidth-to-power and slew-rate-to-power efficiencies than all other reported multistage amplifiers using different compensation topologies.     

Shielding effect of on-chip interconnect inductance

Interconnect inductance introduces a shielding effect which decreases the effective capacitance seen by the driver of a circuit, reducing the gate delay. A model of the effective capacitance of an RLC load driven by a CMOS inverter is presented. The interconnect inductance decreases the gate delay and increases the time required for the signal to propagate across an interconnect, reducing the overall delay to drive an RLC load. Ignoring the line inductance overestimates the circuit delay, inefficiently oversizing the circuit driver. Considering line inductance in the design process saves gate area, reducing dynamic power dissipation. Average reductions in power of 17% and area of 29% are achieved for example circuits. An accurate model for a CMOS inverter and an RLC load is used to characterize the propagation delay. The accuracy of the delay model is within an average error of less than 9% as compared to SPICE.     

交流提升与有源反馈补偿的无片外电容CMOS低压差稳压器

A capacitor-free CMOS low-dropout （LDO） regulator for system-on-chip （SoC） applications is presented. By adopting AC-boosting and active-feedback frequency compensation （ACB-AFFC）, the proposed LDO regulator, which is independent of an off-chip capacitor, provides high closed-loop stability. Moreover, a slew rate enhancement circuit is adopted to increase the slew rate and decrease the output voltage dips when the load current is suddenly switched from low to high. The LDO regulator is designed and fabricated in a 0.6 μm CMOS process. The active silicon area is only 770 × 472 μm2. Experimental results show that the total error of the output voltage due to line variation is less than ±0.197%. The load regulation is only 0.35 mV/mA when the load current changes from 0 to 100 mA.