Implementation of a Multipath Fully Differential OTA in 0.18-μm CMOS Process

Abstract

This brief implements a highly efficient fully differential transconductance amplifier, based on several input-to-output paths. Some traditional techniques, such as positive feedback, nonlinear tail current sources, and current mirror-based paths, are combined to increase the transconductance, thus leading to larger dc gain and higher gain bandwidth (GBW) product. Two flipped voltage-follower (FVF) cells are employed as variable current sources to provide class-AB operation and adaptive biasing of all other drivers. The proposed structure includes several input-to-output paths that play the role of dynamic current boosters during the slewing phase, thus improving the slew rate (SR) performance. The circuit was fabricated in a TSMC 0.18- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> CMOS process with a silicon area of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$54.5\times 30.1\,\,\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . Experimental results show a GBW of 173.3 MHz, a dc gain of 72.7 dB, and an SR of 139.4 V/ <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for a capacitive load of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2\times5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> pF. The proposed circuit consumes 619 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of power, under a supply voltage of 1.8 V.

Topics & Concepts