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Transconductance enhancement in bulk-driven input stages and its applications

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Abstract

Two different circuit techniques to enhance the effective transconductance of a CMOS bulk-driven differential input stage are presented in this paper. Both approaches rely on a partial positive feedback, which leads to improved values for the DC gain and the gain-bandwidth product. The operation principle of the first solution is based on modifying the effective conductance of the active load of the input stage, while the second method acts directly on the input differential pair. The suitability of the presented techniques is demonstrated by the design of operational transconductance amplifiers operating at two different supply voltages, i.e., 2.4 and 1.0 V. Besides, the overall design of two applications, namely a 3 V input/output rail-to-rail operational amplifier with high linearity and a 1.2 V second-order OTA-C low-pass filter, is addressed. Simulated results obtained in standard 0.35 μm CMOS technology demonstrate the applicability of the solutions introduced.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Dirección General de Universidades of the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia under Grant PR2007-0509 and by Junta de Extremadura and FEDER under Grant PRI09A080. The authors wish to thank all the members of the Integrated Microsystems Laboratory of the University of Pavia (Italy) for their help and all the facilities provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics, University of Extremadura, Avda. de Elvas s/n, 06006, Badajoz, Spain

    Juan M. Carrillo & J. Francisco Duque-Carrillo

  2. Department of Electronics, University of Pavia, Via Ferrata 1, 27100, Pavia, Italy

    Guido Torelli

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  1. Juan M. Carrillo
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  2. Guido Torelli
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  3. J. Francisco Duque-Carrillo
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Correspondence to Juan M. Carrillo.

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Carrillo, J.M., Torelli, G. & Duque-Carrillo, J.F. Transconductance enhancement in bulk-driven input stages and its applications. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 68, 207–217 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-011-9603-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-011-9603-z

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