This paper presents an inductorless circuit technique for CMOS limiting amplifiers. By employing the third-order interleaving active feedback, the bandwidth of the proposed circuit can be effectively enhanced while maintaining a suppressed gain peaking within the frequency band. Using a standard 0.18-m CMOS process, the limiting amplifier is implemented for 10-Gb/s broadband applications. Consuming a DC power of 189 mW from a 1.8-V supply voltage, the fabricated circuit exhibits a voltage gain of 42 dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 9 GHz. With a 2 31 1 pseudo-random bit sequence at 10 Gb/s, the measured output swing and input sensitivity for a bit-error rate of 10 12 are 300 and 10 mV pp , respectively. Due to the absence of the spiral inductors, the chip size of the limiting amplifier including the pads is 0.68 0.8 mm 2 where the active circuit area only occupies 0.32 0.6 mm 2 .
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.