Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, 39, 169175, 2004

c 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands.

Novel Two OTRA-Based Grounded Immitance Simulator Topologies

UGUR AM,1 FIRAT KAC
C AR,2 OGUZHAN CICEKOGLU,3 HAKAN KUNTMAN4
AND AYTEN KUNTMAN2
1
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, Engineering Faculty, 35160 Buca, Izmir, Turkey
2
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Istanbul University, Engineering Faculty, Avclar, Turkey
3
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bogazici University, Engineering Faculty, 34342 Bebek, Istanbul, Turkey
4
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
80626 Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey
E-mail: ugur.cam@eee.deu.edu.tr; fkacar@istanbul.edu.tr; akuntman@istanbul.edu.tr; cicekogl@boun.edu.tr; kuntman@ehb.itu.edu.tr

Accepted June 27, 2003

Abstract. Three new operational transresistance amplifier (OTRA)-based grounded parallel immitance simulator
topologies are presented. The proposed circuits use two OTRAs and require fewer passive components than most
of the counterparts in the literature. The performance of the proposed immitance simulators is demonstrated on a
fourth-order bandpass filter. PSPICE simulation results are included to verify theory.

Key Words: immitance simulators, OTRA, analog filters

1. Introduction immitance simulator topologies employing operational

transresistance amplifier to provide further possibilities
The operational transresistance amplifier (OTRA) is to the designers in the realization of analog signal pro-
one of the most important building blocks of analog cessing circuits.
integrated circuits and systems. Since the input termi-
nals of OTRA are at ground potential, most effects of
parasitic capacitances and resistances disappear. Thus 2. The Proposed Circuits
it possible to obtain very accurate and cascadable trans-
fer functions by using this device in a negative feedback The circuit symbol of the OTRA is illustrated in Fig. 1.
loop [1, 2]. There are many applications of immitance The port relations of an OTRA can be characterized by
simulators such as oscillator design, filter design and the following matrix equation,
cancellation of parasitic elements. Many immitance
simulators employing various active components such Vp 0 0 0 Ip

as current conveyor, current feedback op-amp and four n= 0
V 0 0 In (1)
terminal floating nullor are available in the literature
Vz Rm Rm 0 Iz
[39]. From these circuits some are related with sim-
ulation of series immitance function [6, 7]. Moerover
several specific circuits for the simulation of R-L and For the OTRA both input terminals as well as the
C-D immitances have been reported [35]. A recent output terminal has low impedance, thereby eliminat-
work presents universal series and parallel immitance ing response limitations incurred by capacitive time
simulator topologies using two FTFNs [8]. General im-
mitance simulator circuits that enable simulation of all
possible form of inductors such as lossy and lossless
types is proposed in reference [9]. However, they are
using three (CCII+)s. Numereous floating immitance
simulator topologies are also available in the literature
[10, 11]. In this study we present new grounded parallel Fig. 1. Circuit symbol of the OTRA.
170 C
am et al.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 2. The proposed immitance simulator topologies.

 Novel Two OTRA-Based Grounded Immitance Simulator Topologies 171

Table 1. Various types of inductors realized with the presented

circuits.

Figure L eq G eq Type
C G4
2(a) G1 G2 G3 G1 + G2 L parallel with R
2(b) G 1CGG24G 3 G1 + G2 L parallel with R
C
2(c) G2
Pure L

Fig. 3. A current-mode multi-output filter realized with proposed

constants. The input terminals are internally grounded parallel R-L simulator.
leading to circuits that are insensitive to the stray capac-
itances. For ideal operation, the transresistance Rm ap-
proaches infinity forcing the input currents to be equal.
Thus the OTRA is used in a feedback configurations in
a way that is similar to the op-amp [1, 2].
The proposed circuits are shown in Fig. 2. Routine
analysis of these circuits yield the input impedances,
equivalent inductances and equalivent resistances as
given in Table 1. From Table 1 one can observe that the
proposed circuits can simulate various combinations of
parallel lossy inductances. Note that RC:CR transfor-
mation makes actively simulation of parallel C-D im-
mitances possible which is an important research topic
in active network synthesis. From comparison of the
proposed immitance simulator topologies in Table 1 it
is concluded that the first circuit can simulate (+L) with
(+R). Thus it can be used to implement a current mode
filter. The second and circuit can simulate (L) with Fig. 4. Realization of an OTRA with two AD844 CCII+.
(R). This is especially important if the parasitics have to
be cancelled. The third circuit can simulate pure (+L).

3. Application Example and Simulation Results

A current-mode dual function filter was designed and

simulated to illustrate an application of the proposed
topologies. The basic cell is parallel R-L simulator with
a parallel capacitor C L and R L to form the resonant
circuit shown in Fig. 3. In this figure actively simulated
R-L circuit in Fig. 2(a) replaces the parallel R-L circuit.
The transfer functions are given by IHP /Iin = s 2 /
and

IBP /Iin = (G L /C L )s/

where

= s 2 + (G eq + G L )s/C L + 1/L eq C L

Capacitor or the resistor current can easily be sensed by

additional current buffers and high output impedances Fig. 5. The frequency response of the current-mode filter in Fig. 3.
172 C
am et al.

Fig. 6. A fourth-order band-pass filter realized with two R-L simulators.

Fig. 7. PSPICE simulation results of frequency response of the fourth-order band-pass filter.

can be achieved. The element values of the realized fil-
ter are chosen as follows: C L = 10 nF, R L = 1 k,
R1 = 2 k, R2 = 2 k, R3 = 1 k, R4 = 1 k and
C = 1 nF, thus an inductor with L eq = 4 mH with a
parallel resistance Req = 1 k is obtained which re-
sults in a pole frequency f p = 25164 Hz and a quality
factor Q p = 0.79.
The designed filter circuit is simulated with PSPICE
program using two AD844-based realization of OTRA
shown in Fig. 4. Supply voltages are taken as VDD =
10 V and VSS = 10 V. Simulation result of the filter
response is given in Fig. 5, which is very in good agree-
ment with the predicted theory. The deviations in the
frequency response of the filter from theoretical values
are caused by the non-idealities of the OTRA.
There are many applications that require a narrow
band bandpass tuned amplifiers such as video signal
processing, TV receivers and wireless communications
 Novel Two OTRA-Based Grounded Immitance Simulator Topologies
stages. By using the filter topology shown in Fig. 3,a
fourth order bandpass filter was implemented which is
shown in Fig. 6. Two AD 844 CCII IC of Analog De-
vices were used as a voltage-to-current converter and
a current buffer [12]. It is possible to adjust center fre-
quency of individual stages as stagger or synchronized
tuning. In this study synchronized tuning of stages is
chosen as f c = 129.9 kHz. The required passive ele-
ments values in Fig. 6 are R L1 = 1 k, R L2 = 1 k,
L eq = 1 mH, Req = 0.5 k and C L = 1.5 nF. The
simulated Req and L eq can easily be realized by using
the circuit in Fig. 2(a) with R1 = 1 k, R2 = 1 k,
R3 = 1 k, R4 = 1 k, and C = 1 nF. The frequency
response of the fourth order bandpass filter is shown in
Fig. 7.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, three circuits for actively simulation of
parallel immitances are proposed. All circuits employ
only two OTRAs as the active element. A fourth-order
band-pass filter is realized to illustrate the practical use
of the proposed topologies as an application example.
PSPICE simulation results are given to verify the the-
ory. It is expected that the proposed circuits will be use-
ful in design of analog signal processing applications
such as filters and oscillators and will provide therefore
further possibilities to the designer in the realization of
analog circuits.
Acknowledgment
This work is partially supported by Dokuz Eylul Uni-
versity with the code of 02.KB.FEN.065. The authors
would like to thank Dokuz Eylul University Research
Fund for this financial support.
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Ugur C am was born in Turkey, on October 10,
1972. He received B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. Degree from
Istanbul Technical University at 1993, 1996 and 2000
respectively. From 19942000 he served as research
assistant at Sakarya University, Department of Elec-
trical and Electronic Engineering. He joined Dokuz
Eylul University Department of Electrical and Elec-
tronic Engineering as Asst. Prof. in 19.07.2001. He is
currently associate professor at Dokuz Eylul Univer-
sity Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineer-
ing. His research interest includes analog integrated
circuit design, analog signal processing, current-mode
circuits and electronic device modelling. He is author
or co-author of 25 journal papers. He has also served
as a reviewer for many scientific journals in electronic
engineering.
174 C
am et al.
Frat Kacar was born in Diyarbakr, Turkey, on
March 21, 1976. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. de-
grees from Istanbul University at 1998 and 2000, re-
spectively. He is still a Ph.D. student of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering at Istanbul University. He is
currently a research assistant at Istanbul University, De-
partment of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His
research interest includes analog integrated circuit de-
sign, electronic device modelling and hot-carrier effect
on MOS transistor.
Oguzhan Cicekoglu was born in 1963 in Istanbul,
Turkey. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from
Bogazici University and the PhD. degree from Istanbul
Technical University all in Electrical and Electronics
Engineering in 1985, 1988 and 1996 respectively. He
served as lecturer at the School of Advanced Voca-
tional Studies Electronics Prog. of Bogazici University
where he held various administrative positions between
1993 and 1999, and as part time lecturer at various in-
stitutions. He was with Biomedical Engineering Insti-
tute between 1999 and 2001. He is currently Associate
Professor at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Department of Bogazici University.
His current research interests include analog circuits,
active filters, analog signal processing applications and
current-mode circuits. He is the author or co-author of
about 150 papers published or accepted for publish-
ing in scientific journals or conference proceedings.
Oguzhan Cicekoglu is a member of the IEEE.
Hakan Kuntman received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and
Ph.D. degrees from Istanbul Technical University in
1974, 1977 and 1982, respectively. In 1974 he joined
the Electronics and Communication Engineering De-
partment of Istanbul Technical University. Since 1993
he is a professor of electronics in the same department.
His research interest include design of electronic cir-
cuits, modeling of electron devices and electronic
systems, active filters, design of analog IC topologies.
Dr. Kuntman has authored many publications on mod-
elling and simulation of electron devices and electronic
circuits for computer-aided design, analog VLSI de-
sign and active circuit design. He is the author or the
coauthor of 69 journal papers published or accepted
for publishing in international journals, 84 conference
papers presented or accepted for presentation in in-
ternational conferences, 98 turkish conference papers
presented in national conferences and 10 books re-
lated to the above mentioned areas. Furthermore he
advised and completed the work of 5 Ph.D students
and 27 M.Sc. students. Currently, he acts as the advi-
sor of 7 Ph.D. and 14 M.Sc. students. Dr. Kuntman
is a member of the Chamber of Turkish Electrical En-
gineers (EMO).
Ayten Kuntman received her M.Sc. degree from
Istanbul University in 1979 and her Ph.D. degree from
Istanbul Technical University in 1989, respectively. In
1980 she joined the Electronics and Communication
 Novel Two OTRA-Based Grounded Immitance Simulator Topologies 175

Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical Univer-
sity. From 1995 to 2001 she was an associate pro-
fessor of Electrical Power Systems in the Electrical
and Electronics Engineering Department of Istanbul
University. Since 2001 she is a professor of Electrical
Power Systems in the same department. Her research
interest include dielectric properties of polymers, semi-
conductors, aging of cable polymers, microelectronics
technologies, thermodinamic properties of polymers
and reliability of materials. Dr. Kuntman has authored
many publications on polymers, semiconductors and
microelectronics technologies.