A bulk-driven quasi-floating gate FVF current mirror for low voltage,low power applications

This paper introduces a new low-voltage, low-power FVF current mirror circuit. The bulk-driven (BD) technique is employed to achieve extended input voltage swing and low supply voltage. Besides, the quasi-floating gate (QFG) is used to achieve high frequency performance. The merging of (BD) and (QFG) appear as a good and attractive solution to improve the circuit performance with reduced supply voltage. Benefiting from the interesting properties of (BD-QFG) MOSFET (MOST) technique, the proposed FVF current mirror circuit exhibits superior performance compared to other previously reported works. The workability of the proposed circuit has been verified through ELDO simulator based on a 0.18 μm USMC process. It achieves an enhanced bandwidth (2.7 GHz), low power consumption (79.33 μW), a low input impedance (130 Ω), and high output impedance (9.5 G Ω) from a low supply voltage (0.8 V). Monte Carlo simulation is also carried out, which proves the robust performance of the proposed circuit against mismatches. An application of the proposed current mirror is presented in the form of the current comparator to ensure the workability of the proposed BD-QFG current mirror.     

Instrumentation amplifier and current injection circuit design for input impedance boosting in biopotential and bioimpedance measurements

This paper describes an instrumentation amplifier (IA) architecture with a mechanism that generates negative capacitances at its input. Two 8-bit programmable capacitors between the input stage and the current feedback loop of the IA allow adaptive cancellation of the input capacitances from the electrode cables and printed circuit board. The proposed negative capacitance generation technique can improve the input impedance from a few megaohms to above 500 MΩ without significant impact on performance parameters such as the common-mode rejection ratio, power supply rejection ratio, total harmonic distortion, and noise. Furthermore, a current injection circuit is introduced for on-chip input impedance estimation. An operational transconductance amplifier and associated key design concepts are presented in this paper that achieve a transconductance of 25 pS and an output impedance above 4 GΩ. The IA and the test current generator were designed and simulated using 0.13 µm CMOS technology.     

A Novel Resistor-Free Electronically Adjustable Current-Mode Instrumentation Amplifier

In this paper, a novel topology for implementing resistor-free current-mode instrumentation amplifier (CMIA) is presented. Unlike the other previously reported instrumentation amplifiers (IAs), in which input and/or output signals are in voltage domain, the input and output signals in the proposed structure are current signals and signal processing is also completely done in current domain benefiting from the full advantages of current-mode signal processing. Interestingly the CMRR of the proposed topology is wholly determined by only five transistors. Compared to the most of the previously reported IAs in which at least two active elements are used to attain high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) resulting in a complicated circuit, the proposed structure enjoys from an extremely simple circuit. It also exhibits low input impedance employing negative feedback principal. Of more interest is that, using simple degenerate current mirrors, the differential-mode gain of the proposed CMIA can be electronically varied by control voltage. This property makes it completely free of resistors. The very low number of transistors used in the structure of the proposed CMIA grants it such desirable properties as low-voltage low-power operation, suitability for integration, wide bandwidth etc. SPICE simulation results using the TSMC 0.18-μm CMOS process model under supply voltage of ±0.8 V show a high CMRR of 91 dB and a low input impedance of 291.5 Ω for the proposed CMIA. Temperature simulation results are also provided, which prove low temperature sensitivity of the proposed CMIA.     

1.5-V CMOS exponential current generator

A new low-voltage CMOS exponential current generator is proposed in this work. MOS transistors in weak-inversion region and a master?Cslave technique for the temperature compensation were used. The circuit was fabricated with standard CMOS 0.35???m process using a single supply voltage of 1.5?V. Experimental results validate the theoretical analysis and verify the effectiveness of the proposed structure. A 40?dB range linearly in dB controlled output current with less than 1.5?dB linearity error was achieved. The structure features ±1 and ±3?dB deviations for ±10% supply voltage and 80°C temperature variations, respectively.     

一种面向单片DC/DC的低压高效片上电流检测技术

本文提出并实现了一种面向电流模式单片开关DC/DC转换器的低压高效片上电流采样电路.该电路利用功率管等效电阻电流检测技术和无需OP放大器的源极输入差分电压放大技术,使电路的应用范围可低达2.3V;-3dB带宽12MHz;在最大负载电流情况下的静态电流峰值仅19μA,比常规采用功率管镜像电流检测技术的静态电流峰值低1.5个量级左右.转换器基于0.5μm 2P3M Mixed Signal CMOS工艺设计制作.测试结果表明,电流检测电路的最大检测电流1.1A,转换器的输入最低电压2.3V,重负载转换效率高于93%.     

Novel low-voltage folder for analogue-to-digital converter

A novel architecture of low-voltage folder is presented for folding analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter applications. With MOS transistors completely replacing the resistor load used in the conventional folder, this circuit has a good power-supply–rejection-ratio (PSRR) 21.2?dB for the output common voltage and can work well even under a very low power supply 1.0?V. A moderately high gain 14.5?dB and a wide input bandwidth 506?MHz are obtained. The circuit dissipates only 1.2?mW from 1.2?V power supply. The performance is verified by Hspice-Avanti-99.4 simulations on 0.18?µm digital CMOS technology.     

一种用于生物信号采集的CMOS全差分前置跨阻放大器设计

针对生物信号微弱、变化范围大等特点设计了一种用于检测微弱电流的全差分跨阻放大器(TIA)电路结构。不同于传统电路的单端输入,该结构采用高增益的全差分两级放大器实现小信号输入及轨到轨输出。基于CSMC 0.18μm CMOS工艺,采用1.8V电源电压对设计的电路进行了仿真,仿真结果表明:TIA输入电流动态范围为100nA^10μA,最大跨阻增益达到104.38dBΩ,-3dB带宽为4MHz,等效输入噪声电流为1.26pA/Hz。对电路进行跨阻动态特性仿真表明,在输入电流为100nA时,输出电压的动态摆幅达到3.24mV,功耗仅为250μW,总谐波失真(THD)为-49.93dB。所设计的高增益、低功耗、宽输入动态范围TIA适用于生物医疗中极微小生物信号的采集,可作为模块电路集成在便携设备中。     

Current and transimpedance mode instrumentation amplifier using a single new active component named CDTRA

In this study, both current and transimpedance mode instrumentation amplification operations are met through a new active building block proposal, namely Current DifferencingTransresistance Amplifier block, CDTRA. In order to regard CDTRA as an instrumentation amplifier (IA), two grounded passive resistors are needed. Passive resistors together with electronically tunable transresistance parameter of active block, r_m, set versatility over gain tunability for instrumentation amplifier. Proposed active block is current input, current/voltage output design. It has low impedance input, high impedance for current output, and low impedance for voltage output respectively. Since this particular IA is based on CDTRA, then it inherits these electrical characteristics fully. Numerous SPICE simulations are performed through the paper to verify validity of the study. TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS technology parameters are utilized through simulations. Experimental work is performed for the proposed IA circuit.     

A 1-V BiCMOS rail-to-rail amplifier with n-channel depletion modeinput stage

A BiCMOS rail-to-rail operational amplifier capable of operating from supply voltages as low as 1 V is presented. The folded cascode input stage uses an nMOS depletion mode differential pair to provide rail-to-rail common mode voltage range while typically requiring only 40 fA of input bias current. The bipolar transistor differential-to-single-ended conversion network employs a low-voltage base current cancellation technique which provides high input stage voltage gain from a l-V supply yet allows a 3-V/μs slew rate capability. The bipolar transistor output stage uses a low-voltage translinear loop which maintains a low impedance signal path to the output common emitter power devices. This circuit topology enables the amplifier to achieve a 4-MHz bandwidth with 60° of phase margin. The output voltage can swing to within 50 mV of each supply rail. An “on-demand” base current boost technique will be presented which can provide up to 50 mA of output drive capability from a 5-V supply, yet consumes only a few microamps when the output is in the quiescent state. A low voltage level shift technique will be described which uses an n-channel depletion mode source follower to provide isolation between the input and output stages     

Low-voltage high-performance voltage-mode and current-mode WTA circuits based on flipped voltage followers

A new low-voltage CMOS winner-take-all (WTA) circuit is presented. The proposed circuit exhibits a linear increase of complexity with the number of inputs at the rate of only three transistors per input and it is based on a modified version of the common source scheme. In this case, each input follower is enhanced by local shunt feedback to increase its gain and to reduce its output impedance. Simulations demonstrate the potential of the circuit to operate at very high speed, with high precision and with a supply voltage close to a transistor's threshold voltage. Experimental verification of the circuit using a 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology is also provided.     

Single Transistor High-Impedance Tail Current Source With Extended Common-Mode Input Range and Reduced Supply Requirements

A compact implementation of a single transistor tail current source with very high output impedance (>40 MOmega) and low-voltage requirements is introduced. The tail transistor can operate with less than a drain-source saturation voltage and allows implementation of low-voltage differential pairs with wide common-mode input range and very high common-mode rejection ratio. Simulation and experimental results are shown that validate the proposed circuit.     

A novel wide band super transistor based voltage feedback current amplifier

This paper is assigned to the design of voltage feedback current amplifiers (VFCAs). Their operation and interesting characteristics are covered and a novel CMOS VFCA is presented. New ideas based on super transistors (STs) are devised and used to design a high performance VFCA. Benefiting from the interesting properties of STs, the proposed VFCA exhibits high linearity, high output impedance, very low input impedance and wide bandwidth. The proposed circuit is designed using TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology parameters and supply voltage of ±0.75 V. Simulation results with HSPICE show low THD of ?60 dB at the output signal, very low impedance of 0.6 Ω and 0.2 Ω at the input and feedback ports respectively and high output impedance of 10 MΩ. Moreover it can provide wide ?3 dB bandwidth of 15.5 MHz. The results prove the high capability of the VFCA in current mode signal processing and encourage strong motivation to develop commercially available VFCAs.     

Low-voltage, high dB-linear, exponential V-V converter

A new idea is proposed to make use of the disadvantages at low-voltage operations to widen the output dynamic range and the input swing of the exponential voltage-to-voltage circuit with differential input, at low-voltage low-power applications. The pseudo-exponential function is used to realise the exponential characteristic. Based on 0.25 /spl mu/m CMOS technology, simulations show a 16 dB linear improvement of the output voltage range while dissipating less than 0.2 mW from 1.25 V supply voltage.     

A very high performance self-biased cascode current mirror for CMOS technology

This paper presents a novel high performance self-biased cascode current mirror (CM) for CMOS technology. The proposed circuit shows a resistance compensated high bandwidth CM operating at low voltages. This circuit uses super cascode configuration to obtain high output impedance required for high performance of CM. Active implementation of passive resistances of the proposed circuit is shown. The simulations of proposed CM are carried out by Mentor Graphics Eldospice based on TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology, for input current range of 0–500 μA. A bandwidth of 2.26 GHz, input and output resistances of 679 Ω and 482 MΩ respectively, are obtained with a single supply voltage of ?1 V.     

Differential Difference Current Conveyor Using Bulk-Driven Technique for Ultra-Low-Voltage Applications

Nowadays the necessity of having low-voltage operation and low-power consumption is essential for electronic devices, particularly for portable electronics. Therefore, this paper presents a new ultra-low-voltage CMOS topology for a differential difference current conveyor (DDCC) based on the bulk-driven (BD) principle. Due to the use of the BD technique, the proposed circuit is capable of working with a low supply voltage of ±0.3 V and consumes about 18.6 μW with a wide input common-mode range. The proposed BD-DDCC is suitable for ultra-low-voltage low-power applications. As application examples, a voltage-mode multifunction biquadratic filter based on two BD-DDCCs and four grounded passive elements, and a fourth-order band-pass filter are presented. All passive elements of both applications are grounded, which is advantageous for monolithic integration. Also, the input voltage signals are applied directly to the high input impedance terminals, which is a desirable feature for voltage-mode operation. The simulations were performed with PSPICE using the TSMC 0.18 μm n-well CMOS technology to prove the functionality and attractive results of the proposed circuit.     

A novel ±0.5 V,high current drive,and rail to rail current operational amplifier

A current operational amplifier (COA) with very high current drive capability is presented in this paper. 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. Owing to the elaborately arranged components, the proposed circuit demonstrates very high frequency bandwidth, extremely high CMRR, high output impedance, and true rail to rail output voltage swing range while operating at very low power supply of ±0.5 V. The interesting results such as current drive capability of ±1 mA, high output impedance of 5 GΩ, wide gain bandwidth of 220 MHz, extremely high output voltage swing of ±0.45 V, which interestingly provides the highest yet reported output voltage compliance for current mode building blocks implemented by regular CMOS technology, low static power consumption of 159 μW, and very high CMRR of 155 dB is achieved utilizing standard CMOS technology. Full process, voltage, and temperature variation analysis of the circuit is also investigated in order to approve the well robustness of the structure. The transient stepwise and sinusoidal response analysis is also done to verify the proposed COA stability.     

Design of low-voltage CMOS continuous-time filter with on-chipautomatic tuning

A technique for designing a low-voltage continuous-time active filter is presented in this paper. In this technique, current sources are added to the inverting or noninverting op-amp terminals such that the op-amp input common-mode voltages can be set close to one of the supply rails to allow low-voltage operation. An automatic frequency and Q tuning technique is proposed for tuning the active filter using programmable capacitor arrays (PCAs). The proposed tuning technique does not require any peak detectors, which are difficult to implement at a low supply voltage. Instead, it uses a few analog comparators, a digital comparator, and a few binary counters to adjust the PCAs. To demonstrate the proposed techniques, a 1-V 1-MHz second-order filter fabricated in a conventional 1.2-μm CMOS process is presented. For a 5-kHz input signal, the filter achieves a THD of -60.2 dB for a peak-to-peak output voltage of 600 mV. The frequency tuning range is between 585 kHz and 1.325 MHz. The measured power consumption for the filter alone consumes about 0.52 mW and for the entire system consumes about 1.6 mW for a supply voltage of ±0.5 V     

一种低失调高压大电流集成运算放大器

基于结型场效应晶体管(JFET)和双极型晶体管(BJT)兼容工艺,设计了一种低失调高压大电流集成运算放大器。电路输入级采用p沟道JFET (p-JFET)差分对共源共栅结构;中间级以BJT作为放大管,采用复合有源负载结构;输出级采用复合npn达林顿管阵列,与常规推挽输出结构相比,在输出相同电流的情况下,节省了大量芯片面积。基于Cadence Spectre软件对该运算放大器电路进行了仿真分析和优化设计,在±35 V电源供电下,最小负载电阻为6Ω时的电压增益为95 dB,输入失调电压为0.224 5 mV,输入偏置电流为31.34 pA,输入失调电流为3.3 pA,单位增益带宽为9.6 MHz,具有输出9 A峰值大电流能力。     

A parallel structure for CMOS four-quadrant analog multipliers andits application to a 2-GHz RF downconversion mixer

A parallel structure for a CMOS four-quadrant analog multiplier is proposed and analyzed. By applying differential input signals to a set of combiners, the multiplication function can be implemented. Based on the proposed structure, a low-voltage high-performance CMOS four-quadrant analog multiplier is designed and fabricated by 0.8 μm N-well double-poly-double-metal CMOS technology. Experimental results have shown that, under a single 1.2 V supply voltage, the circuit has 0.89% linearity error and 1.1% total harmonic distortion under the maximum-scale input 500 mV_p-p at both multiplier inputs. The -3 dB bandwidth is 2.2 MHz and the DC current is 2.3 mA. By using the proposed multiplier as a mixer-core and connecting a newly designed output buffer, a CMOS RF downconversion mixer is designed and implemented by 0.5 μm single-poly-double-metal N-well CMOS technology. The experimental results have shown that, under 3 V supply voltage and 2 dBm LO power, the mixer has -1 dB conversion gain, 2.2 GHz input bandwidth, 180 MHz output bandwidth, and 22 dB noise figure. Under the LO frequency 1.9 GHz and the total DC current 21 mA, the third-order input intercept point is +7.5 dBm and the input 1 dB compression point is -9 dBm     

一种0.8V衬底驱动轨对轨运算放大器设计

采用衬底驱动技术设计低压低功耗轨对轨运算放大器。输入级采用衬底驱动MOSFET,有效避开阈值电压限制,将电源电压降至0.8V,实现低压下轨对轨共模输入范围。增加衬底驱动冗余差分对及反折式共源共栅求和电路实现恒定跨导控制,消除共模电压对输入级跨导的影响,输出采用前馈式AB类输出级,以提高动态输出电压范围。基于标准0.18μmCMOS工艺仿真运放,测得输出范围0.4～782.5mV,功耗48.8μW,电源抑制比58dB,CMRR65dB,直流开环增益63.8dB,单位增益带宽2.4MHz,相位裕度68°。版图设计采用双阱交叉空铅技术,面积为97.8μm×127.6μm。