Noise

Lecture 3
Circuit N oise Analysis and Representation

Behzad Razavi
Electrical Engineering Department
University of California, Los Angeles
 Outline

• Noise Analysis Procedure

• Input-Referred Noise Voltage
• Input-Referred Noise Current
• Some Complications

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 A Few Refreshers

• Noise Transfer Function:

• Device Noise Sources:

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 Noise Analysis Procedure

• Identify sources of noise.

• Find the transfer function from each source to
the output.
• Determine the output spectrum due to each
source.
• Add all of the contributions at the output.

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 Pictorially …

Actual
Circuit

Measuring
Output Noise

Modeling by
Output Noise

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 Example

• But there are complications …

gm 2gm

|Av| = gm rO |Av| = 2gm rO

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 Input-Referred Noise

• Example:

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 Another Example

• If 1/gm ~ 50 Ω, input-
gm referred noise is about
0.91 nV/ Hz.

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Alternative Calculation Technique

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 There are still complications …

Model: Zero output noise

Input:
Open Circuit
Actual Circuit:

• Output noise depends on the source impedance. 

Discrepancy arises from finite input impedance of the
circuit. 10
 Complete Noise Model

• Calculation Procedure:
Voltage
Calculation

Current
Calculation

• Example:

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 Notes on Input-Referred Noise
• When is the effect of In,in negligible?

Negligible if:

• Vn,in and In,in are generally correlated  can’t

use superposition for their powers.

• Possible workarounds:
1. Merge circuit with previous stage:

2. Consider only output noise.

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