A gm/ID-Based Design Strategy for IoT and Ultra-Low-Power OTAs with Fast-Settling and Large Capacitive Loads

Giustolisi, G.; Palumbo, G.

doi:10.3390/jlpea11020021

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…These systems are usually powered by batteries or by energy harvested from the environment: this requires minimizing not only the power dissipation, to extend the battery life, but also the supply voltage, because energy harvesting systems are able to provide voltages in the hundreds of mV range [13]. As a consequence, the research in the field of ultra-low-voltage (ULV) and ultra-low-power (ULP) electronics has received a strong boost [14][15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Differential-to-Single-Ended Converter Based on Enhanced Body-Driven Current Mirrors Targeting Ultra-Low-Voltage OTAs

et al. 2022

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In this work, an ultra-low-voltage (ULV) technique to improve body-driven current mirrors is proposed. The proposed technique is employed to improve the performance of conventional differential-to-single-ended (D2S) converters which at these low voltages suffer from a low common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR). In addition, the technique aims to improve the performance of the conventional D2S also under a large signal swing and with respect to the process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations, resulting in a very low distortion, high current mirror accuracy and robust performance. An enhanced body-driven current mirror was designed in a 130nm CMOS technology from STMicroelectronics and an exhaustive campaign of simulations was conducted to confirm the effectiveness of the strategy and the robustness of the results. The enhanced D2S was also employed to design a ULV operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) and a comparison with an OTA based on a conventional D2S was provided. The simulation results have shown that the proposed enhanced D2S allows achieving the ULV OTAs with a CMRR and a PSRR which are 18 and 9 dB higher than the ones obtained with the conventional D2S topology, respectively. Moreover, the linearity performance is also improved as shown by the THD, whose value is decreased of about 5 dB.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Differential-to-Single-Ended Converter Based on Enhanced Body-Driven Current Mirrors Targeting Ultra-Low-Voltage OTAs

et al. 2022

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“…Recent years have seen a growing interest in ultra-low-voltage operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] that are a key building block in many analog and mixed-signal applications such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) and biomedical ones [19][20][21][22]. This is a strong incentive to innovate the design flow of analog blocks: even if they often constitute just a small fraction of a mixed-signal system, their design requires a large fraction of the overall effort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Standard-Cell-Based CMFB for Fully Synthesizable OTAs

Centurelli

Sala

Scotti

2022

JLPEA

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In this paper, we propose a fully standard-cell-based common-mode feedback (CMFB) loop with an explicit voltage reference to improve the CMRR of pseudo-differential standard-cell-based amplifiers and to stabilize the dc output voltage. This latter feature allows robust biasing of operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) based on a cascade of such stages. A detailed analysis of the CMFB is reported to both provide insight into circuit behavior and to derive useful design guidelines. The proposed CMFB is then exploited to build a fully standard-cell OTA suitable for automatic place and route. Simulation results referring to the standard-cell library of a commercial 130 nm CMOS process illustrated a differential gain of 28.3 dB with a gain-bandwidth product of 15.4 MHz when driving a 1.5 pF load capacitance. The OTA exhibits good robustness under PVT and mismatch variations and achieves state-of-the-art FOMs also thanks to the limited area footprint.

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“…Finally, many dc-dc converters used in IoT devices, including smartwatches and earbuds, require low-drop-out regulators (LDO) [37][38][39] which employ OTAs with high drive capabilities and bandwidth [39]. LV-LP OTAs are often based on multiplestage Miller compensation [39][40][41], and more recently on digital approaches to analog amplification [42][43][44][45].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel OTA Architecture Exploiting Current Gain Stages to Boost Bandwidth and Slew-Rate

et al. 2021

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A novel architecture and design approach which make it possible to boost the bandwidth and slew-rate performance of operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) are proposed and employed to design a low-power OTA with top-of-class small-signal and large-signal figures of merit (FOMs). The proposed approach makes it possible to enhance the gain, bandwidth and slew-rate for a given power consumption and capacitive load, achieving more than an order of magnitude better performance than a comparable conventional folded cascode amplifier. Current mirrors with gain and a push–pull topology are exploited to achieve symmetrical sinking and sourcing output currents, and hence class-AB behavior. The resulting OTA was implemented using the 130 nm STMicroelectronics process, with a supply voltage of 1 V and a power consumption of only 1 µW. Simulations with a 200 pF load capacitance showed a gain of 92 dB, a unity-gain frequency of 141 kHz, and a peak slew-rate of 30 V/ms, with a phase margin of 80°, and good noise, PSRR and CMRR performance. The small-signal and large-signal current and power FOMs are the highest reported in the literature for comparable amplifiers. Extensive parametric and Monte Carlo simulations show that the OTA is robust against process, supply voltage and temperature (PVT) variations, as well as against mismatches.

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A gm/ID-Based Design Strategy for IoT and Ultra-Low-Power OTAs with Fast-Settling and Large Capacitive Loads

Cited by 9 publications

References 71 publications

A Differential-to-Single-Ended Converter Based on Enhanced Body-Driven Current Mirrors Targeting Ultra-Low-Voltage OTAs

A Differential-to-Single-Ended Converter Based on Enhanced Body-Driven Current Mirrors Targeting Ultra-Low-Voltage OTAs

A Standard-Cell-Based CMFB for Fully Synthesizable OTAs

A Novel OTA Architecture Exploiting Current Gain Stages to Boost Bandwidth and Slew-Rate

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