European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.37 No.3 (2009), pp.368-375 EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009 http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.

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Low-Power High-Speed OTA in 0.35m CMOS Process

Zahra Haddad Derafshi Microelectronic and Microsensor Lab Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran E-mail: Hz.h.derafshi@gmail.comU Tel: +98-914-1064016
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Mohammad Hossein Zarifi Microelectronic and Microsensor Lab Electrical and Computer Engineering Department University of Tabriz,Tabriz, Iran E-mail: m_zarifi@tabrizu.ac.ir Tel: +98-914-1144341 Abstract
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This paper presents a fully-differential, high gain, high speed and low power CMOS Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA). Gain boosting technique which is proper for low supply voltage applications, has been used to achieve high gain and common-mode feedback (CMFB) is used to stable the designed OTA against temperature and other process variations. Our designed circuit has been implemented in 2P3M standard CMOS technology. Simulation results comprehend a DC gain of 110 dB, a unity-gain frequency of 800 MHz associated with a phase margin of 71 degrees with power dissipation of 5 mW from 3.3 volts power supply for standard 0.35 m CMOS technology. We have also studied the OTA's operation in a 4th order Gm-C filter. Keywords: Telescopic OTA, gain-boosting, CMFB, Gm-C filter.

1. Introduction
Frequency-selective filters are a class of filters specifically intended to accurately or approximately select some band of frequencies and reject others. The use of frequency selective filters arises in a variety of situations [1]. They are widely used in communication systems for the purpose of separating an information-bearing signal from unwanted contaminations such as interference, noise and distortion products. Signal processing systems that appear to be entirely digital often contain one or more analog continuoustime filters internally or as interface with the analog world [2]. Classical active RC filters cannot be implemented directly in monolithic form due to the large chip area required, wide tolerances and temperature dependence of the passive components. This problem has been solved in two ways. In the first, MOS transistors operating in their linear region have been used to replace resistors in active RC filters. However, filters based on this approach have suffered from low dynamic range due to the MOS transistor nonlinearity. The second approach, filters based on Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA), transconductance elements and capacitors have been successfully implemented in CMOS technology [3]. High-speed filters are increasingly based on an Operational Transconductance

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Amplifiers (OTAs) - Capacitor (Gm-C) approach, because of their simple circuitry and improved frequency response. The performance of the filter depends on the OTA circuit which is the main distortion contributor in the filter. In this paper we have design a Telescopic OTA with high performance and studied its operation in Gm-C filter.

2. OTA Circuit Description

The topology used in this design is a single stage telescopic structure with two gain boosting stages. Telescopic structure is used because it has high DC gain, high unity gain frequency, fast settling and low power dissipation. Differential structure helps in reduction of distortion since higher order nonlinearities get cancelled. Proposed structure is shown in Figure 1. Boosting stages will increase the DC gain of the amplifier.
Figure1: proposed OTA structure

2.1. Gain Boosting Stages The limited gain of one-stage structures and difficulties in using two-stage structures at high speeds has motivated using gain-boosting technique. The idea behind gain boosting stages is to increase output impedance without adding more cascode devices [4]. Since each cascode device decreases the output voltage swing. In contrast to two-stage opamps, where the entire signal experiences the poles associate with each stage, in a gain-boosting opamp, most of the signal directly follows through the cascode devices to the output [4] thus in the gain boosted method the extra stage does not change the original unity gain frequency. In order to increase the gain of the opamp an N-type folded cascode amplifier has been used to increase the impedance of PMOS part of the main telescopic stage and a P-type folded cascode stage has been used to increase the impedance of NMOS part of the main stage. Figure 2 and Figure 3 shows the boosting stages that has been used. The gates of M11 and M12 are connected to drains of M1 and M2 respectively and drains of M15 and M16 are connected to gates of M3 and M4. The gates of M21 and M22 are connected to drains of M7 and M8 respectively and drains of M25 and M26 are connected to gates of M5 and M6.

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Figure 2: PMOS gain boosting stage to be used in NMOS part of the main structure.

Figure 3: NMOS boosting stage to be used in PMOS part of the main structure.

2.2. Common Mode Feedback As mentioned before fully differential OTAs require a common-mode feedback to control the common-mode output voltage because the CM output level is sensitive to device properties and mismatches. In high-gain differential circuits, a little mismatch between the bias current of pull-up network and that of pull-down network would force the output voltages to go to one of the power supply rails. Thus, it makes the differential circuits does not operate properly. As a result, differential circuits need a negative feedback mechanism, which is called common mode feedback, to adaptively adjust the bias current of either pull-up or pull-down network so as to maintain a stable common mode (CM) output voltage [7]. Figure 4 shows the configuration of the CMFB that used in this design.

Low-Power High-Speed OTA in 0.35m CMOS Process

Figure 4: CMFB structure.

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3. Butterworth Filter
Butterworth filters have a maximally flat gain response in the filter band pass and rolls off toward zero in the stopband. The following equation shows the gain response of the n-th order low-pass butterworth filter. 1 G ( j ) = 1 + ( ) 2n

Where n is the order of the filter and 0 is the -3dB cutoff frequency. As the order n of the butter worth filter increases, the magnitude function is closer to unity in the bandpass. Figure 5 shows the second order butterworth filter. The pole frequency and quality factor of second order filter are as follows: 1 Gm1Gm2 f0 = 2 C1C 2 And Gm1C1 Q= Gm2 C 2 As it can be seen in Figure 5 the main part of the filter is OTA.
Figure 5: Second order butterworth filter.

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4. Results
Presented OTA has been designed and simulated in 0.35m standard CMOS technology. Hspice has been used to simulate the designed OTA. Gain boosting stages simulation results is presented in Table 1. Table 2 summarized simulation results for the designed OTA.
Table 1: Simulation results for gain boosting stages.
A1 53 dB 230 MHz 75 degrees 100 fF 200 W A2 50 dB 220MHz 75degrees 200fF 200W

parameters DC Gain Unity Gain Bandwidth Phase margin Load capacitance Power Consumption

Table 2:

Simulation results of the OTA.

Value 3.3 volt 110 dB 800 MHz 70 degrees 1 pF 0.15 volt/nsec 10nsec 5mW -30 to 40 0.73 %

Parameters Vdd DC Gain Unity Gain Bandwidth Phase Margin Load Capacitance Slew Rate Settling Time Power Consumption Temperature Range THD @ 200mVpp,700MHz

Figure 6 shows the AC analysis which consists of open loop frequency and phase response of the OTA for temperature range of -30 to 40 degrees. Figure 7 shows the step response of the OTA. Figure 8 shows the THD variation vs. frequency and Figure 9 shows the THD variation vs. input voltage for the OTA.
Figure 6: DC gain and Phase margin of the OTA for temperature range of -30 to 40 degrees.

Low-Power High-Speed OTA in 0.35m CMOS Process

Figure 7: Step Response of the designed OTA.

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Figure 8: THD variation vs. frequency in MHz at 100mVpp.

Figure 9: THD variation vs. input voltage in mV at 100MHz.

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Table 3 gives the comparison with previous works. As can be seen from table 3 this design has an improved operation. Designing high speed OTAs with low power is the main challenge due to the trade-off between power and speed.
Table 3: Comparison
This work 1 110dB 800 1pF 71 5mW 0.35 [6] 1 100dB 410 2pF 70 19.5mW 0.35 [12] 1 83dB 230 0.1pF 46 NA 0.35 [13] 1 93dB 135 7pF 61 48mW 0.35

No. Stages Gain GBW (MHz) Load Capacitor Phase Margin Power Process(m)

The designed OTA has been used in a fourth order butterworth filter which is achieved by coupling second order filters, with a sharp cutoff frequency of 100MHz, dynamic range of 60dB and total power dissipation of 27mW . Figure 10 demonstrates the frequency response for designed filter.
Figure 10: frequency response of butterworth filter.

5. Conclusion
A single stage fully differential telescopic OTA with gain boosting stages for Gm-C filter is represented in this paper. The designed OTA has a DC gain of 110dB and unity gain bandwidth of 800MHz and a phase margin of 71 while using 1pF load capacitance. This design is comparable with state-of-art designs in modern CMOS processes. The designed OTA has low power with high-linearity that makes it feasible to be used in Gm-C filters with sharp cutoff Frequency.

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References
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