Advances in active-feedback frequency compensation with power optimization and transient improvement

This paper presents a low-power stability strategy to significantly reduce the power consumption of a three-stage amplifier using active-feedback frequency compensation (AFFC). The bandwidth of the amplifier can also be enhanced. Simulation results verify that the power dissipation of the AFFC amplifier is reduced by 43% and the bandwidth is improved by 32.5% by using the proposed stability strategy. In addition, a dynamic feedforward stage (DFS), which can be embedded into the AFFC amplifier to improve the transient responses without consuming extra power, is proposed. Implemented in a 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS process, experimental results show that both AFFC amplifiers with and without DFS achieve almost the same small-signal performances while the amplifier with DFS improves both the negative slew rate and negative 1% settling time by two times.     

Single-Capacitor Active-Feedback Compensation for Small-Capacitive-Load Three-Stage Amplifiers

This brief presents a single-capacitor active-feedback compensation (SCAFC) scheme for three-stage internal amplifiers driving small capacitive loads. The proposed SCAFC scheme can stabilize the three-stage amplifier by using only a single small-value compensation capacitor, thereby significantly reducing the amplifier implementation area. With the small-value compensation capacitor, the wide gain-bandwidth product (GBW) of the SCAFC amplifier can also be achieved under low-power conditions. Implemented in a standard 0.35-mum CMOS process, the proposed three-stage SCAFC amplifier achieves over 100-dB dc gain, 9.6-MHz GBW, and 6.1-V/mus average slew rate, by only dissipating 90 muW at 1.5 V and using a 1-pF compensation capacitor, when driving a 500-kOmega // 20-pF load. The proposed SCAFC amplifier experimentally improves both bandwidth-to-power and slew-rate-to-power efficiencies by more than 14 times and 9 times, respectively, as compared to a conventional three-stage nested-Miller-compensated amplifier.     

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.     

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.     

A micropower fourth-order elliptical switched-capacitor low-pass filter

A micropower fourth-order elliptical switched-capacitor (SC) low-pass filter for biomedical applications has been designed and measured. The charge transfer error of an SC integrator using a transconductance amplifier is discussed. Also first-order noise and PSRR calculations are performed and compared with the results of simulations and measurements. The measurements show that by careful optimization of the gain bandwidth, slew rate, and gain of the amplifiers, high-performance low-power SC filters can be constructed. The cutoff frequency of the filter is 5 kHz, the ripple in the passband is 0.27 dB, and stopband rejection is 49 dB. The power consumption of the filter is 190 /spl mu/W with /spl plusmn/2.5-V power supplies. The dynamic range of the filter is 75 dB, and the total harmonic distortion over the whole passband range is below 0.25% for a 2-V/SUB pp/ input signal. The PSRR of the filter is above 40 dB at frequencies below 3 kHz.     

Positive feedback frequency compensation for low-voltage low-power three-stage amplifier

The use of a new frequency compensation scheme for a three-stage operational amplifier is presented. The use of a positive feedback compensation (PFC) is employed to improve frequency response when compared to nested Miller compensation. A set of design equations is derived to give insight into the sizing of the amplifier. In addition, some characteristics relevant to the low-voltage low-power circuits using operational amplifiers have been modeled. Finally, an optimization algorithm was used with the purpose of extracting the most efficient solution. The PFC is especially suitable for driving large capacitance loads. It improves frequency response, slew rate (SR), and settling time. Small compensation capacitors make it appropriate for integration in commercial CMOS processes. With an active area of 0.03 mm/sup 2/ and working at 1.5 V, the circuit dissipates 275 /spl mu/W, has more than a 100-dB gain, a gain bandwidth of 2.7 MHz, and 1.0 V/spl mu/s average SR while driving a 130-pF load. Both measured frequency and transient step response show that the amplifier is stable.     

Three-stage large capacitive load amplifier withdamping-factor-control frequency compensation

A novel damping-factor-control frequency compensation (DFCFC) technique is presented in this paper with detailed theoretical analysis, This compensation technique improves frequency response, transient response, and power supply rejection for amplifiers, especially when driving large capacitive loads, Moreover, the required compensation capacitors are small and can be easily integrated in commercial CMOS process. Amplifiers using DFCPC and nested Miller compensation (NMC) driving two capacitive loads, 100 and 1000 pF, were fabricated using a 0.8-μm CMOS process with V_tn=0.72 V and V_tp=-0.75 V. For the DFCFC amplifier driving a 1000-pF load, a 1-MHz gain-bandwidth product, 51° phase margin, 0.33-V/μs slew rate, 3.54-μs settling time, and 426-μW power consumption are obtained with integrated compensation capacitors. Compared to the NMC amplifier, the frequency and transient responses of the DFCFC amplifier are improved by one order of magnitude with insignificant increase of the power consumption     

A 24-GHz, +14.5-dBm fully integrated power amplifier in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS

A 24-GHz +14.5-dBm fully integrated power amplifier with on-chip 50-/spl Omega/ input and output matching is demonstrated in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS. The use of substrate-shielded coplanar waveguide structures for matching networks results in low passive loss and small die size. Simple circuit techniques based on stability criteria derived result in an unconditionally stable amplifier. The power amplifier achieves a power gain of 7 dB and a maximum single-ended output power of +14.5-dBm with a 3-dB bandwidth of 3.1 GHz, while drawing 100 mA from a 2.8-V supply. The chip area is 1.26 mm/sup 2/.     

Single Miller capacitor frequency compensation technique for low-power multistage amplifiers

Due to the rising demand for low-power portable battery-operated electronic devices, there is an increasing need for low-voltage low-power low-drop-out (LDO) regulators. This provides motivation for research on high-gain wide-bandwidth amplifiers driving large capacitive loads. These amplifiers serve as error amplifiers in low-voltage LDO regulators. Two low-power efficient three-stage amplifier topologies suitable for large capacitive load applications are introduced here: single Miller capacitor compensation (SMC) and single Miller capacitor feedforward compensation (SMFFC). Using a single Miller compensation capacitor in three-stage amplifiers can significantly reduce the total capacitor value, and therefore, the overall area of the amplifiers without influencing their stability. Pole-splitting and feedforward techniques are effectively combined to achieve better small-signal and large-signal performances. The 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS amplifiers, SMC, and SMFFC driving a 25-k/spl Omega///120-pF load achieve 4.6-MHz and 9-MHz gain-bandwidth product, respectively, each dissipates less than 0.42 mW of power with a /spl plusmn/1-V power supply, and each occupies less than 0.02 mm/sup 2/ of silicon area.     

A 1.8-V 10-Gb/s fully integrated CMOS optical receiver analog front-end

A fully integrated 10-Gb/s optical receiver analog front-end (AFE) design that includes a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and a limiting amplifier (LA) is demonstrated to require less chip area and is suitable for both low-cost and low-voltage applications. The AFE is fabricated using a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The tiny photo current received by the receiver AFE is amplified to a differential voltage swing of 400 mV/sub (pp)/. In order to avoid off-chip noise interference, the TIA and LA are dc-coupled on the chip instead of ac-coupled though a large external capacitor. The receiver front-end provides a conversion gain of up to 87 dB/spl Omega/ and -3dB bandwidth of 7.6 GHz. The measured sensitivity of the optical receiver is -12dBm at a bit-error rate of 10/sup -12/ with a 2/sup 31/-1 pseudorandom test pattern. Three-dimensional symmetric transformers are utilized in the AFE design for bandwidth enhancement. Operating under a 1.8-V supply, the power dissipation is 210 mW, and the chip size is 1028 /spl mu/m/spl times/1796 /spl mu/m.     

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.     

用于低功耗三级放大器的嵌套式密勒有源电容频率补偿技术

提出了一种新的用于低功耗,节省面积的三级放大器频率补偿技术.该技术将有源电容进行嵌套连接从而克服了传统的嵌套式密勒补偿与反嵌套式密勒补偿的缺点.当将这一技术用标准的0.35μm工艺设计成电路并负载150pF电容时,放大器实现了105dB直流增益,3.3M的增益带宽积,68°相位裕度以及2.56V/μs的平均转换速率.而这一切的实现是在2V电源电压仅消耗40μW的功耗以及使用了很小的补偿电容.     

A 32-GHz non-uniform distributed amplifier in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS

This letter presents a fully integrated distributed amplifier in a standard 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. By employing a nonuniform architecture for the synthetic transmission lines, the proposed distributed amplifier exhibits enhanced performance in terms of gain and bandwidth. Drawing a dc current of 45mA from a 2.2-V supply voltage, the fabricated circuit exhibits 9.5-dB pass-band gain with a bandwidth of 32GHz while maintaining good input and output return losses over the entire frequency band. With a compact layout technique, the chip size of the distributed amplifier including the testing pads is 940/spl times/860/spl mu/m/sup 2/.     

Self-biased cross-coupled low-cost fully-differential CMOS operational amplifier

A low-cost fully-differential operational amplifier (opamp) using a novel self-biased cascode output stage and cross-coupled input stage is proposed. Fabricated in only an 84/spl times/67 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ area with TSMC 0.35 /spl mu/m technology, and loaded with more than 100 pF capacitance, the opamp possesses 60 dB DC gain, 3 V//spl mu/s slew rate, 7.8 MHz unity-gain bandwidth, and -48 dB total harmonic distortion.     

17-GHz 50-60 mW power amplifiers in 0.13-/spl mu/m standard CMOS

Two versions of power amplifiers with different output matching approaches for the 17-GHz band were realized in 0.13-/spl mu/m standard digital CMOS technology with 1.5-V supply voltage. The power amplifier with an external matching network delivers 17.8-dBm saturated output power with 15.6% power added efficiency (PAE). The small-signal gain is 11.5 dB. The fully integrated power amplifier delivers 17.1-dBm saturated output power with 9.3% PAE. The small-signal gain is 14.5 dB. No external radio frequency components are required.     

Design and anaylsis of a 2.5-Gbps optical receiver analog front-end in a 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS technology

This paper presents the design of an optical receiver analog front-end circuit capable of operating at 2.5 Gbit/s. Fabricated in a low-cost 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS process, this integrated circuit integrates both transimpedance amplifier and post limiting amplifier on a single chip. In order to facilitate high-speed operations in a low-cost CMOS technology, the receiver front-end has been designed utilizing several enhanced bandwidth techniques, including inductive peaking and current injection. Moreover, a power optimization methodology for a multistage wide band amplifier has been proposed. The measured input-referred noise of the optical receiver is about 0.8 /spl mu/A/sub rms/. The input sensitivity of the receiver front-end is 16 /spl mu/A for 2.5-Gbps operation with bit-error rate less than 10/sup -12/, and the output swing is about 250 mV (single-ended). The front-end circuit drains a total current of 33 mA from a 3-V supply. Chip size is 1650 /spl mu/m/spl times/1500 /spl mu/m.     

High-sensitivity BiCMOS OEIC for optical storage systems

A new BiCMOS optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC) for applications in advanced optical storage systems is presented. It is optimized with respect to high sensitivity and high speed. The photodiode and the amplifier are monolithically integrated on the same substrate in a commercial 0.8-/spl mu/m BiCMOS process. Analytical expressions for the compensation capacitors and for the bandwidth of the OEIC are derived. Neglecting antireflection coating, no process modifications are necessary to produce the integrated photodiodes. A new offset compensation scheme is implemented in the amplifiers to allow for a small chip area and low power consumption. The OEIC shows a sensitivity of 43.3 mV//spl mu/W in combination with a -3-dB bandwidth of 60.2 MHz.     

A high precision monolithic super-beta operational amplifier

A single-chip (67/spl times/90 mil) integrated-circuit operational amplifier using thin-film resistors and super-gain transistors has been designed to achieve dc follower accuracies of 0.001 percent with 100-k/spl Omega/ source resistance. The circuit achieves gains of 140 dB using thermally balanced layout designs for both input and output stages, nulled drifts of 0.3 /spl mu/V//spl deg/C, and offset currents well under 1 nA. All other dc specifications including power-supply variation error (PSRR), common-mode gain error (CMRR), etc., are in the 1-10 ppm error range; and a procedure is given by which long-term drifts of less than 10 /spl mu/V/month can be assured. AC performance is comparable to general-purpose integrated-circuit operational amplifiers, i.e., f/SUB t/=300 kHz and slew rate of 1.2 V//spl mu/s at gain of ten. The circuit is externally compensated for unity gain with a single 390-pF capacitor and is fully input and output protected.     

A complete high-speed voltage output 16-bit monolithic DAC

A new single-chip 16-bit monolithic digital/analog converter (DAC) with on-chip voltage reference and operational amplifiers has achieved /spl plusmn/0.0015% linearity, 10 ppm//spl deg/C gain drift, and 4-/spl mu/s settling time. Novel elements of the 16-bit DAC include: the fast settling open-loop reference with a buried Zener, a fast-settling output operational amplifier without the use of feedforward compensation, and a modified R-2R ladder network. Thermal considerations played a significant role in the design. The DAC is fabricated using a 20-V process to reduce device sizes and therefore die size. All laser trimming including temperature drift compensation is performed at the wafer level. The converter does not require external components for operation.     

A 100-MHz 100-dB operational amplifier with multipath nested Millercompensation structure

A 100-MHz bipolar operational amplifier has a gain of 100 dB. The op amp owes its high unity-gain bandwidth and high gain to an all-n-p-n signal path and multipath nested Miller compensation (MNMC). The phase margin with a 100-pF load is 40° at 100 MHz and the amplifier settles in 60 ns to 0.1% on a 1-V step. For comparison, a similar op amp without the multipath technique has been realized. The unity-gain bandwidth of this nested Miller compensation (NMC) op amp is 60 MHz and the settling time is 70 ns. Theory and measurements confirm that the multipath technique almost doubles the bandwidth of nested Miller compensated amplifiers