Current Mode Second Order Unity Gain Filters using
Single Current Differencing Buffered Amplifier
(CDBA)
Bhawna Aggarwal Monika Sanghwahia
NSIT, Delhi University NSIT, Delhi University
Delhi, India Delhi, India
kbhawnagarg@yahoo.co.in monikasanghwahia@yahoo.co.in
Abstract— In this paper, a new topology has been proposed for
designing the basic second order unity gain filters using single
CDBA at a low supply voltage of ±0.7V. To maintain integrated
circuit operation, the inductors required were replaced by their
Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA) equivalent
circuits using 0.25µm CMOS technology. The results are
simulated in PSPICE software and verified with the ideal one.
The simulation results assure the validity of the designed
topology.
Keywords— Current Differencing Buffered Amplifier (CDBA),
Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA), Filter topology
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, filters are very essential in the operation of most
electronic circuits. Low voltage basic filters are gaining
considerable interest as their power dissipation is being
utilized in modern low voltage devices [1].
Voltage mode active building blocks like operational amplifier
played a significant role in designing of various circuits in the
past few decades [1]. However, these circuits have several
drawbacks like bandwidth and slew rate limitations.
Nowadays, Current mode circuits like 2nd generation Current
Conveyors (CCII+ and CCII-), Current Feedback Op-Amp
(CFOA), Current Differencing Buffered Amplifier (CDBA)
etc. are receiving considerable attention due to their high slew
rate, simple circuitry, wider bandwidth, greater linearity,
larger dynamic range and less power consumption [2].
CDBA has the flexibility to work in both current and voltage
modes and therefore, it is best suited in analog mixed mode
circuits. Moreover, its nature of being almost free from
parasitic capacitances makes it a suitable device for
implementing high frequency applications.
During the past few years, innumerable work has been done
on designing filters using current mode active devices. The
concept of current conveyors was first introduced by Sedra
and Smith in 1968. Since then, the area of current mode
circuits has grown up very fast and a lot of work has been
carried out in this area. Another new building block known as
Current Differencing Buffered Amplifier was introduced by S.
Shweta Gautam
NSIT, Delhi University
Delhi, India
shwetauiet11@gmail.com
Ozoguz, A. Toker and C. Acar in 1999 [1]. It simplifies the
realization of continuous-time analog filters. A large number
of active devices has been proposed in literature with some
modifications in CDBA like ZC-CDBA (Ersin Alaybeyo,
Arda Güney, Hakan Kuntman, 2013) [3], CC-CDBA
(Maheshwari and Khan, 2004) [4]. The work is still going on
to use CDBA for low voltage and high frequency applications
[5-8].
In this paper, a new improved topology with single CDBA has
been proposed to realize all the current mode second order
unity gain filters such as low-pass filter (LPF), high pass filter
(HPF), band pass filter (BPF), band stop filter (BSF) and all-
pass filter (APF) [10]. It utilizes two active components like
CDBA and Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA)
and passive components like resistors and capacitors to design
various second order unity gain current mode filters. The
conventional 3-OTA based floating inductor has been used to
realize the inductor in the above topology.
The paper is organized as follows: in section II, low
voltage CDBA has been reviewed. Proposed filter topology
and their realization using single CDBA has been discussed in
section III. Section IV shows the simulation results of the filter
topology presented in the paper and finally the paper is
concluded in section V.
II. CURRENT DIFFERENCING BUFFERED AMPLIFIER
(CDBA)
CDBA is a four-terminal current mode active element whose
symbol is shown in Fig.1(a) where p is used for positive input
terminal and n is for negative input terminal. w and z are the
output voltage and output current terminals respectively. The
equivalent circuit of the CDBA is given in Fig.1(b).
Characteristics of CDBA is as follows:
 Here, CDBA is implemented using only NMOS as shown in
Fig. 2. CDBA is divided into current differencing circuit and
buffered amplifier. To bias the ports of CDBA at zero
potential, MOSFETs M1 and the source current Idc are used.
Fig.1. a) Circuit symbol of CDBA showing input and output MOSFETs (M2-M5, M15) and (M6-M10) and current mirror
terminals (M11-M14) are used for current differencing circuit. M16-
M20 are used as a buffered amplifier. CDBA operates at
minimum supply voltage of ±0.7V with minimum power
dissipation.

Fig.1. b) Equivalent circuit of CDBA

Fig.2. Implementation of NMOS based CDBA

Derivation of Transfer Function of this topology using port

III. PROPOSED FILTER TOPOLOGY equations of CDBA is as follows:
In recent years, many topologies used for designing of filters
have been proposed in literature. One topology was realization
of filters which consists of cross coupled feedback
configuration and a voltage subtractor using three CDBAs [6].
The main disadvantage of this proposed filter is its supply
voltage which is ±12V and high-power dissipation. Another Rearranging the 3, we get
topology was using cascadable current mode filters [9]. Again,
the supply voltage was ±12V and higher power dissipation
was recorded. In this paper, filter topology based on single
CDBA has been designed which is used to realize all kinds of
second order basic filters. Proposed filter topology, uses only
single CDBA whose supply voltage is ±0.7V. So, power
dissipation was least in this circuit. The current mode filter
topology is being used for designing of all the basic filters i.e
LPF, HPF, APF, BPF and BSF. Fig.3 shows the topology of
the proposed filter.
Similarly,

Fig.3. The proposed filter topology

Equation (6) and (7) can be used to obtain all the basic filters
by using different impedance values of . By
using different impedance values, all the basic filters can be
designed. Realization of the basic filters using the proposed
topology is shown in the following sub-sections.
in (10), transfer function of HPF can be
obtained which is equivalent to the standard second order HPF
transfer function.

A. DESIGNING OF BASIC SECOND ORDER

FILTERS USING PROPOSED TOPOLOGY 3) Band Stop Filter (BSF)
The architecture used to design BSF using CDBA is shown in
1) Low Pass Filter (LPF) Fig.6. TF of the proposed Band Stop Filter is as follows:
The realization of LPF using proposed topology is shown in
Fig. 4.

Fig.4. Proposed LPF

Here, is replaced by a resistor and an inductor connected in
series. and are replaced by capacitors. Transfer function Fig.6. Proposed BSF
(TF) of LPF obtained by substituting the values of In Fig.6, is replaced by a resistor. is replaced by a
in (6) is given as: capacitor and is replaced by a series combination of an
inductor and capacitor. By putting the values of
in (12), TF of BSF is obtained which is equivalent to the
transfer function of standard second order BSF.

2) High Pass Filter (HPF)

4) Band Pass Filter (BPF)
Configuration of High Pass Filter using CDBA is shown in
Transfer Function of the proposed Band Pass Filter is as
Fig.5. TF of the proposed HPF is derived as follows:
follows:

By keeping , we get

Fig.7. Proposed BPF

Here, a series combination of capacitor and inductor are used

Fig.5. Proposed HPF in place of . and are replaced by resistors. Using the
Here, is replaced by a series combination Capacitor and a values of in (18), transfer function of BPF can
Resistor. is replaced by a capacitor and resistor and is be obtained which is equivalent to the transfer function of
replaced by an inductor. After adding the values of standard second order LPF.
 5) All Pass Filter (APF)
From the same filter topology which is used in BPF, APF can
be obtained. The transfer function of proposed APF is as
follows:

Again is replaced by of capacitor and an inductor

connected in series. and are replaced by resistors. The
obtained transfer function is same as the transfer function of Fig.9. Implementation of floating inductor using MOS
the standard second order APF. Frequency response is shown
in Fig.7. Here, the current can be expressed as:

It can be seen that the current and are equal but

opposite in direction. Thus, can be modified as:
B. REALIZATION OF INDUCTOR USING OTA

On chip inductors are generally not preferred due to very

limited options of designing it. Also, they consume lots of
chip area [11]. Hence, inductors used in the above circuits
have to be realized using active components like OTA . The
conventional 3-OTA based floating inductor with one By using the value of inductor in (8), (11), (13), (15), (17),
grounded capacitor [12] is shown in Fig.8. Implementation of modified transfer functions are as follows:
OTA based inductor using transistors is shown in Fig.9.

Fig.8. Conventional 3-OTA based floating inductor

The cut-off frequency and Quality Factor are calculated as

follows:
 IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

The performance of the CDBA based different filters have

been analyzed through PSICE with the help of 0.25-µm
CMOS technology using supply voltage of ±0.7V. To study
the different responses of the filters proposed in this paper,
aspect ratio of n-MOSFETs and p-MOSFETs are 20µm/1µm
and 40µm/1µm respectively. Other design parameters of the
circuits are listed in Table I. Values of constant current
sources and used in implementation of CDBA and OTA
are 30µA and 5µA respectively. Value of capacitor used to
design inductor ( ) is 1.9pF.
The gain vs. frequency characteristic of LPF, HPF, BSF, BPF,
APF are illustrated in Fig. 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 respectively. Fig.12. Curve showing gain vs. frequency characteristics of
The designed filters consume very less power of 503µW.
BSF
Values of all the parameters used are listed in Table I.

Fig.13. Curve showing gain vs. frequency characteristics of

BPF
Fig.10. Curve showing gain vs. frequency characteristics of
LPF

Fig.11. . Curve showing gain vs. frequency characteristics of

HPF
Fig.14. Curve showing gain vs. frequency characteristics of
APF
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