Lecture 13 High-Gain Differential Amplifier Design

Woodward Yang School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University woody@eecs.harvard.edu

Overview
Background This lecture investigates different topologies (and their characteristics) that can be used to implement differential amplifiers with extremely high gain. We will again be using cascoding.

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Review of Amplifier Characteristics

Lets review some of the characteristics of the different (singleended) amplifier topologies that weve looked at so far. We will augment this table when we look at the frequency response characteristics of these amplifiers
Amplifier Type Rin High Rout High Av High Ai High

Commonsource/emitter
Commongate/base Commondrain/collector

Low

High

High

High

Low

<1

High

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Multi-Stage Amplifiers (Cascading)

We can cascade different types of amplifiers to get desired overall characteristics. Often want: High input impedance High gain Low output impedance Mix and match cascades of different types of amplifiers to get desired result

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Common-Emitter Emitter-Follower Cascade

A common configuration (for discrete BJT amplifier design) is a common-emitter emitter-follower (common-collector) cascade CE stage has high voltage gain and high input impedance CC stage has low output impedance to drive various load conditions CC stage also presents a high impedance load to the CE amplifier which enables high voltage gain for the CE stage

RC Rs Cin R1
Q1 Q2

vO Cout CE RE2 RLD

vS

R2 REB

REA

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Common-Source Source-Follower Cascade

Similarly, cascade a common-source amplifier with a sourcefollower.
RD
M2

Rs

M1

vO Cout

vS IS1 CS

IS2

RLD

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Building Op Amps
Op amps are an important component of modern CMOS ICs. They used to designed as general purpose amplifiers that can meet a variety of requirements. The main target was extremely high gain (>1e5), high input impedance and low output impedance (like an ideal amplifier). This was done (to some extent) at the expense of different aspects of performance (e.g., speed, output voltage range, power, etc.). Designs these days are much more tailored to have (good enough) performance w.r.t. the specific needs of particular applications. Within an IC, often use Operational Transconductance Amplifiers (OTA). Some performance parameters of op amps Gain and Bandwidth
Want as large as possible Maximize w.r.t. power supply (but supply shrinking in modern processes) Combat non-linearity with feedback Can minimize by trading off other parameters Strong dependence on current source output resistance

Output Swing

Linearity

Noise and Offset

Supply Rejection

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Simple One-Stage Op Amps

Two differential pair amplifiers that we have already seen can be used as op amps. The low-frequency, small-signal gain of both is gmN(roN||roP). The capacitive loads (CL) usually determine their bandwidth.

Vb Vout CL Vin CL Vin Vout CL

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Cascoded Amplifier
Use cascoding to increase load resistance Cascode both the active loads and the differential pair Higher effective load resistance Higher ro for the differential pair Reduces Miller effect (will see later) However, there are some limitations Reduced output swing (must keep all devices in saturation) What is the output dynamic range?

M7

M8

M5

M6

Vbias
M3 M4

vo

M1

M2

vid

How might one increase the output swing range for vo?
9

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Use High-Swing Cascodes

We can use the high-swing cascode circuit as a load to achieve higher output range in a single-ended output telescopic amp

Vb2 Vout Vb CL Vb1 CL Vout

Vin

Vin

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Cascode Op Amps
Amplifiers that use cascoding are often called telescopic cascode amps. While gain increases, the output range of these devices are limited.
Vb3 Vb2 Vout Vb CL CL Vb1 Vout CL

Vin

Vin

Connecting in unity-gain feedback configuration results in significant reduction of output range

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DC Biasing for High-Gain Amplifiers

One of the challenges of using cascodes for high gain is appropriately setting the DC biasing for the circuit. Lets look at an example
ILOAD VBP

VBPC IREF VBNC

vOUT

ILOAD vd VBN ITAIL

What is the raitio of ILOAD vs. ITAIL?

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DC Biasing Contd
Strategy for setting up DC bias All transistors should be saturation Set VBNC so that differential input pair in saturation
Want to set it to the edge with sufficient saturation margin (~300mV)

Set VBP so that ILOAD = ITAIL/2 Set VBPC so that pMOS currnet source loads are close to edge of saturation Need to set VBP and VBPC carefully to keep devices in saturation and the DC common mode of the output nodes to be in the middle of the output swing range
This can be challenging to do due to the high output resistance at the output.

Would be nice if there was a way to automatically set the biasing

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Common-Mode Feedback Biasing

Use an amplifier to set the pMOS current source with respect to some desired output common-mode voltage (VREF).

ILOAD

VBP VREF VBPC IREF VBNC

vOUT

vd VBN ITAIL

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CM FB Biasing
Heres how it works: Use large resistors to find the average (common-mode) output voltage An amplifier compares VREF to VOUT,CM and sets VBP such that VOUT,CM = VREF

Lets understand how it works What happens to VBP if VREF increases?

What happens to VBP if VOUT,CM increases?

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Folded Cascode Circuit

In order to alleviate some of the drawbacks of telescopic op amps (limited output range), a folded cascode can be used M1 is common-source transconductance amp and M2 is common-gate transimpedance amp Advantage is M2 no longer stacks on top of M1 Possible for either pMOS or nMOS cascodes The output resistance for cascode and folded cascode are roughly equivalent (gmro2)

Vout Vb Vin
M2 M1

Vin

M1 M2

Vout Vb

Vin Vb

M1 M2

Vout

Vin

M1

M2

Vb Vout

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Folded Cascode Amplifier

Turn a differential telescopic cascode amplifier into a folded cascode amplifier

Vout Vb Vin Vb

Vout

Vin

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Full circuit Implementation of Folded Cascode Amplifier

Vbp2 IREF1 Vout Vbn2 IREF2

Vin

IREF3

Reference current sources are set: I REF 3 I REF 2 I REF1 2 A version with nMOS differential pair inputs also possible (flip upside down) What sets output common mode? Depends on relative output resistances looking up and down Can vary with process and reference current mismatches
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Gain of a Folded-Cascode Amplifier

Calculate gain using the differential half-circuit. Gain can be calculated as GmRout where Gm is the shortcircuit transconductance of the overall circuit and Rout is the output resistance. Short out Vout to ground and solve for Iout/Vin = Gm Solve for the output resistance

Vbp1 Vbp2 Vin

M1

M5 M4

ro45 Vout

Vbn2 Vbn1

M3 M2

-gm3Vx -Vx ro3

Vout ro45

gm1Vin Vin ro1||ro2

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Common-Mode Feedback
Use feedback to set the output common mode of a folded cascode amplifier, called common-mode feedback Sense the average (common-mode) voltage at the output, compare to a desired reference voltage (Vref), and use it to set the current source
IREF1 IREF2 Vout Vin Vb
CM Sense

IREF2

IFB

Vref

For Vin=0, feedback sets IFB=IREF2+IREF1/2 and common-mode voltage = Vref

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Two-Stage Op Amps
In order to implement amplifiers with high gain and high swing, we must resort to two-stage amplifier designs High-Gain High-Swing First stage used to generate high gain Vin Vout Stage Stage Second stage to generate high swing Use any high-gain first stage and high-swing second stage two simple examples (differential and single-ended output amplifiers)

Vbp

Vbp

Vout1

Vin

Vout2

Vin

Vout

Vbn

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