Single-pair bulk-driven CMOS input stage: A compact low-voltage analog cell for scaled technologies

Bulk-driven MOS transistors lead to a compact low-voltage/low-power input stage implementation. This paper illustrates the rail-to-rail capability of a single-pair bulk-driven CMOS input stage operated from an extremely low supply voltage. A composite input stage is also introduced to point out some limitations inherent in multiple-pair input stages and carry out performance comparison, based on experimental data obtained in standard 0.35 μm CMOS technology. The performance achieved by the single-pair bulk-driven input stage can be readily extended to a nanoscale process, as lower supply voltages in scaled technologies are expected. Measurements demonstrate the rail-to-rail suitability of the single-pair input stage and show intrinsic advantages of this approach in some amplifier features, such as linearity and common-mode rejection ratio, as compared to the case of the composite solution.     

0.5 V bulk-driven analog building blocks

Basic analog building blocks, such as voltage follower (VF), second generation Current Conveyor (CCII), and Current Feedback Operational Amplifier (CFOA), capable for operating under 0.5 V supply voltage, are introduced in this paper. The input stage of the proposed blocks is based on bulk-driven pMOS devices, and simultaneously offers the advantages of almost rail-to-rail input/output voltage swing and capability for operation under the extremely low supply voltage. Their performances have been evaluated and compared through simulation results using a standard 0.18 μm n-well process. The bandwidth of the voltage and current followers for both CCII and CFOA is 11 MHz and 10 MHz, respectively. The power consumption of CCII and CFOA is 30 μW and 50 μW, respectively.     

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 high-performance 1.2 V–99 μW rail-to-rail CMOS class AB amplifier

This paper presents a compact, reliable 1.2 V low-power rail-to-rail class AB operational amplifier (OpAmp) suitable for integrated battery powered systems which require rail-to-rail input/output swing and high slew-rate while maintaining low power consumption. The OpAmp, fabricated in a standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology, exhibits 86 dB open loop gain and 97 dB CMRR. Experimental measurements prove its correct functionality operating with 1.2 V single supply, performing very competitive characteristics compared with other similar amplifiers reported in the literature. It has rail-to-rail input/output operation, 5 MHz unity gain frequency and a 3.15 V/μs slew-rate for a capacitive load of 100 pF, with a power consumption of 99 μW.     

低功耗CMOS限幅放大器设计

利用0.18μm CMOS工艺设计了应用于光接收机中的10Gb/s限幅放大器.此限幅放大器由输入缓冲,4级放大单元,一级用于驱动50Ω传输线的输出缓冲和失调电压补偿回路构成.输入动态范围为38dB(10mV～800mV),负载上的输出限幅在400mV,在3.3V电源电压下,功耗仅为99mW.整个芯片面积为0.8×1.3mm2.     

Design tradeoffs for sub-mW CMOS biomedical limiting amplifiers

This paper presents design considerations on CMOS limiting amplifiers to be used as basic building blocks for power-efficient logarithmic amplifiers. The impact of mismatches and device-level properties on sensitivity and gain-bandwidth product is discussed. To this end, a comparison of several types of low-voltage gain cell topologies is presented. Based on statistical (Monte Carlo) results, a high-sensitivity eight-stage limiting amplifier tolerant of process spreads and devices mismatches was designed in 0.35 μm CMOS technology to operate over dc to 20 MHz bandwidth and experimentally evaluated. The proposed limiting amplifier draws 280 μA from a 2-V supply and achieves a voltage gain of 72 dB.     

Very Low Voltage Rail-to-Rail Programmable-Gain CMOS Amplifier

A novel design technique for operating closed-loop amplifier circuits at very low supply voltages is proposed. It is based on the use of quasi-floating gate transistors, avoiding issues encountered in true floating-gate structures such as the initial floating-gate charge, offset drift with temperature, and the gain-bandwidth product degradation. A programmable-gain differential amplifier is designed and implemented following this method. Measurement results of an experimental prototype fabricated in a 0.5-m CMOS technology validate on silicon the proposed technique.     

Low-Voltage Current Feedback Operational Amplifiers

A number of current feedback operational amplifier topologies suitable for operation in a low-voltage environment are introduced in this paper. Their realization is based on the corresponding low-voltage second generation current conveyor topologies. Important performance factors such as accuracy, bandwidth, and linearity have been considered, and the obtained simulation results have been compared in order to evaluate the behavior of the proposed topologies.     

CMOS Power-Efficient Buffers and Amplifiers

In this paper, some topologies of novel power-efficient single-ended and fully differential amplifiers and buffers are presented. The reduction of the power dissipation has been ensured through the application of an adaptive biasing architecture which gives a current dependent on the input differential voltage. This allows the minimization of the stand-by power consumption without affecting the transient characteristics. The proposed topology, implemented in a standard CMOS technology, has been applied in the design of input and output stages of low-power amplifiers and voltage buffers, considering them also in the fully differential version. Simulation and measurement results showing good general performance will be also presented.     

Low-voltage low-power 100 MHz programmable gain amplifier in 0.35 μm CMOS

This paper presents a low-voltage low-power intermediate-frequency programmable gain amplifier (PGA). To achieve low-voltage low-power and wideband operation while preserving linearity, the proposed cell is based on a very simple g _m -boosted differential pair degenerated with a hybrid polysilicon-MOS programmable resistor structure. Fabricated in a 0.35 μm CMOS technology, the PGA consumes less than 0.5 mW at a single 1.8 V supply. Measured results for a 3-bit implementation show a 0 to 18 dB linear-in-dB programmable gain with a constant bandwidth of 100 MHz when driving 150 fF capacitive loads. Distortion levels are below −72 dB over the whole gain range at 10 MHz for a 0.2 V _{p − p} differential output. Compared with other previously reported designs, it shows a good trade-off when all PGA parameters are considered.     

Bulk-driven floating-gate and bulk-driven quasi-floating-gate techniques for low-voltage low-power analog circuits design

In this paper, novel non-conventional techniques,¹ named by the author of this paper “bulk-driven floating-gate (BD-FG)” MOS transistor (MOST) and “bulk-driven quasi-floating-gate (BD-QFG) MOST” for low-voltage (LV) low-power (LP) analog circuit design are presented. These novel techniques appear as a good solution to merge the advantages of floating-gate (FG) and quasi-floating-gate (QFG) with the advantages of bulk-driven (BD) technique and suppress their disadvantages. Consequently, the transconductance and transient frequency of BD-FG and BD-QFG MOSTs approach the conventional gate driven (GD) MOST values. Furthermore, a novel LV LP class AB second generation current conveyor based on BD-FG MOST is presented in this paper as an example. The supply voltage is only ±0.4 V with a rail-to-rail voltage swing capability and total power consumption of mere 10 μW. PSpice simulation results using the 0.18 μm P-well CMOS technology are included to confirm the attractive properties of these new techniques.     

IC Voltage to Current Transducers with Very Small Transconductance

This paper deals with the design of very small ac transconductance voltage to current transducers intended for the design of low frequency continuous-time filters, very large resistors and other applications. The first type of Operational Transconductance Amplifiers (OTA) is based on a triode biased transistor and a current division technique. The second one uses partial positive feedback which allows to reduce transistor dimensions but the sensitivity to transistor mismatches increases. The proposed techniques can be used for the design of high-order low frequency IC filters, ladder or based on biquads, with moderated transistor dimensions while the dynamic range-cutoff frequency performance is comparable to previously reported structures. A 10 Hz third order lowpass ladder filter has been designed with these techniques, and it shows a dynamic range of 62 dB. Besides, a novel biasing technique for capacitive sources coupled preamplifiers is proposed. Experimental results for a prototype, fabricated in a 1.2 m 1 level below 15 _RMS and dynamic range of 63 dB. The power consumption is only 10 watts and the supply voltages are ± 1.5 volts.     

Versatile composite amplifier configuration

This paper describes a versatile composite amplifier in which a current feedback amplifier (CFA) drives an operational amplifier (OPA). In the conventional OPA–CFA composite amplifier, an OPA drives a CFA resulting in a composite structure that combines the DC input stability of the OPA and the high speed capability of the CFA. The proposed composite configuration combines different features of the CFA and OPA, specifically the constant bandwidth property of the CFA and the high power and high current output capacity of the OPA. The new circuit is easily implemented in the standard inverting and non-inverting configurations using commercially available devices, and the accuracy and constant bandwidth features were experimentally verified. Local feedback around the associated CFA ensures that the proposed composite amplifier possesses a higher level of bandwidth constancy than a single CFA.     

Bulk-tuned Gm–C filter using current cancellation

A new approach for small transconductance (Gm) OTA designs, suitable for relatively low frequency filtering applications in the range of few kHz, is proposed. Small Gm values are achieved by a current cancellation technique, and are adjustable by bulk driving the MOS transistors of the input differential amplifier. The OTA design procedure takes into account Pelgrom׳s modeling of mismatch errors. A common-mode feedback control circuit based on floating gate common-mode voltage detector that shares the filter main capacitances is also presented. Experimental results obtained with a low-pass filter with tunable cutoff frequency implemented in a 0.35 μm CMOS process to verify the effectiveness of the design procedure have shown close agreement with the theory.     

A 3.3 V Power Feedback Chip for Linearization of RF Power Amplifiers

The power feedback technique is a simple and low cost linearization scheme suitable for consumer products such as hand sets. This paper presents a custom chip for linearization of RF power amplifiers using power feedback. The chip, implemented in a standard double-metal double-poly 0.6 m CMOS process, operates with 3.3 V supply voltage and consumes 62 mW. When it was used to linearize a commercially available high efficiency RF power amplifier at 850 MHz, experimental results showed that out-of-band power at 30 kHz offset was reduced some 10 dB for a /4-shifted DQPSK modulated North American digital cellular (NADC) signal. For the same level of adjacent channel interference (ACI), the efficiency was increased from 35% to 48%.     

A CMOS Hearing Aid Device

In this paper a CMOS Hearing Aid Device is described. The system is composed of a low-distortion low-noise preamplifier, an automatic gain control (AGC), a fully programmable switched-capacitor filter (equalizer), and a control system. The device has been fabricated in a 1.2 m CMOS analog process. The dynamic range of the device is 55 dB while the harmonic distortion components are below –50 dB. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed architecture.     

“Square Root Domain” Filter Design and Performance

This paper discusses the implementation and performance of square root domain filters, which can be considered as the CMOS equivalent of the bipolar log domain technique. The square root design methodology is based on exploiting the MOSFET large-signal square law characteristic to implement filters which are input-output linear, but operate with internally non-linear signals. The design of subcircuits required for the implementation of square root domain filters is described based on the MOSFET translinear principle, and various performance issues are discussed. Simulation and measured results are also presented to confirm the validity of this approach, which may be attractive for low-voltage operation at frequencies in the MHz range.     

84dB动态范围13b/400kHz/3V/5.88mW ΣΔ模数转换器

介绍了一个200kHz信号带宽、用于低中频结构GSM射频接收机的高精度ΣΔ调制器. 为了达到高线性和稳定性,调制器采用2-1级联单比特的结构实现. 电路在0.18μm CMOS工艺下流片验证,核心面积为0.5mm×1.1mm. 调制器工作在19.2MHz的采样频率,在3V电源电压下功耗为5.88mW. 测试结果表明,在200kHz信号带宽,过采样率为64的条件下,调制器达到84.4dB动态范围,峰值SNDR达到73.8dB,峰值SNR达到80dB.     

Wide dynamic range parallel feedback transimpedance amplifier for 10 Gb/s optical links

This paper presents the design and implementation of a new wide dynamic range parallel feedback (PF) transimpedance amplifier (TIA) for 10 Gb/s optical links. The wide dynamic range is attributed to the novel TIA architecture employing both shunt-shunt and shunt-series feedback networks. The outstanding features of the TIA are wide dynamic range, high gain, low power consumption and design simplicity. A prototype implemented in a 0.5 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology and operating at −3.3 V power supply features an 18.4 dBm dynamic range with a BER less than 10⁻¹², an optical sensitivity of −16 dBm, optical overload of +2.4 dBm, a bandwidth of 8.27 GHz, a gain of 950 Ω and a power consumption of 189 mW. The new parallel feedback architecture offers improved overload and noise performance when compared to previously reported, state of the art, single feedback TIA designs and meets all the 10 Gigabit Ethernet and short-reach OC-192 SONET specifications. Ricardo Andres Aroca received the B.S. (Hons) degree in electrical engineering from the University of Windsor, Canada, and the M.S. degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 2001 and 2004, respectively. In 2000 he spent two 4 month internships with Nortel Networks in the Microelectronics Department. Mr. Aroca received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Counsel of Canada (NSERC) Postgraduate Scholarship award in 2002. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree at the University of Toronto where his research interests lie in the area of high-frequency integrated circuits for wireless and wireline communication systems. C. Andre T. Salama received the B.A.Sc. (Hons.) M.A.Sc. and Ph. D. degrees, all in Electrical Engineering, from the University of British Columbia in 1961, 1962 and 1966 respectively. From 1962 to 1963 he served as a Research Assistant at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1966 to 1967 he was employed at Bell Northern Research, Ottawa, as a Member of Scientific Staff working in the area of integrated circuit design. Since 1967 he has been on the staff of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto where he held the J.M. Ham Chair in Microelectronics from 1987 to 1997. In 1992, he was appointed to his present position of University Professor for scholarly achievements and preeminence in the field of microelectronics. In 1989-90, he was awarded the ITAC/NSERC Research Fellowship in information technology. In 1994, he was awarded the Canada Council I.W. Killam Memorial Prize in Engineering for outstanding career contributions to the field of microelectronics. In 2000, he received the IEEE Millenium Medal. In 2003, he received the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Semiconductor Technology Conference for seminal and outstanding contributions to semiconductor device research and promotion of Canadian University research in microelectronics. In 2004, he received the NSERC Lifetime Achievement Award of Research Excellence for outstanding and sustained contributions to the field of microelectronics and the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Recognition Award for research excellence and outstanding leadership.He was associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems in 1986–88 and a member of the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) Technical Program Committeein 1980–82, 1987–89 and 1996–98. He was the chair of the Solid State Devices Subcommittee for IEDM in 1998 and was a member of the editorial board of Solid State Electronics from 1984 to 2002. He is presently a member of the editorial board of the Analog IC and Signal Processing Journal and the Technical Program Committee of the International Symposium on Power Semiconductor Devices and ICs (ISPSD) and the Technical ProgramCommittee of the International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED). He chaired the technical program committee of ISPSD in 1996 and was the general chair for the conference in 1999.Dr. Salama is the Scientific Director of Micronet, a network of centres of excellence focussing on microelectronics research and funded by the Canadian Government and Industry. He has published extensively in technical journals, is the holder of eleven patents and has served as a consultant to the semiconductor industry in Canada and the U.S. His research interests include the design and fabrication of semiconductor devices and integrated circuits with emphasis on deep submicron devices as well as circuits and systems for high speed, low power signal processing applications. Dr. Salama is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario, the Electrochemical Society and the Innovation Management Association of Canada.     

A tunable highly linear CMOS transconductor with 80 dB of SFDR

This paper presents a new tunable CMOS differential transconductor with an SFDR ranging from 80 to 94 dB. It is based on a core of two voltage buffers with local feedback loops to achieve low-output impedance. The two buffers drive an integrated polysilicon resistor, which is the actual transconductance element. The current generated at the resistor is delivered directly to the output using source coupled pairs. This avoids distortion generated by conventional architectures using current copying cells. The voltage buffers are based on the compact flipped voltage follower (FVF) cell. The proposed transconductor relies on the gain of local feedback loops instead of harmonic cancellation. This leads to a simpler design and less mismatch sensitivity. The proposed transconductor bandwidth is closer to that of the typical open-loop design than to one with global feedback, since the local feedback loop is much faster than a global one. It can be tuned down 20% of its maximum g_m which is enough to compensate for process variations. The proposed circuit was fabricated in a 0.5 μm CMOS technology and powered by a 5 V single supply. It was measured with 2 Vpp input signals up to 10 MHz. The maximum g_m value is 660 μA/V. The transconductor consumes 30 mW and occupies roughly a die area of 0.17 mm². Experimental results are presented to validate the proposed circuit.