502 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: EXPRESS BRIEFS, VOL. 55, NO.

6, JUNE 2008

Single Amplifier Bi-Quadratic Filter Topologies in

Transimpedance Configuration
Gaurav Chandra, Member, IEEE, Preetam Tadeparthy, Member, IEEE, and Prakash Easwaran

Abstract—Active-RC configurations, implemented as cascaded

bi-quadratic sections (biquads), are the filters of choice for low
distortion applications in the base-band. For low power and area
applications, single amplifier biquads are best, and are well studied
in literature. However, in many applications the input signal is in
current domain while the output is a voltage. Output of a current
steering digital–analog converter, and output of a down-conversion
mixer, are two such examples. In this paper, the authors propose
two generic classes of single amplifier bi-quadratic low-pass filter
topologies, achieving a second order roll-off in transimpedance
( -to- ) configuration. Both these topologies are derived with
the constraint of fully differential signal processing. The tran-
simpedance active-RC configurations presented here eliminate
redundant current–voltage–current conversion and hence provide
immense advantages in terms of noise and linearity.
Index Terms—Active filters, analog circuits, biquadratic filters. Fig. 1. Transimpedance all-pole topology with mixed feedback.

application. Most high-end communication receivers are fully

I. INTRODUCTION
ESIGN of analog filters continues to play an important
D
tion (
role in modern communications systems. For low distor-
65-dB) applications, active-RC filters are the filters
of choice. In modern integrated circuits (ICs), since compo-
nent mismatch is not so significant, cascaded implementations
are preferred over ladder implementations due to better pro-
grammability options. For extremely low power and low dis-
tortion applications, operational amplifier (opamp) power is at
a premium. Also, for higher bandwidth applications, even the
overall area tends to be limited by the opamps. For such appli-
cations, single-amplifier implementations are best, and are well
studied in literature [1], [2].
There are a number of applications where the input variable
is a current, and would need to be converted to a voltage before
using the conventional active-RC filters. Hence, it is desirable
to obtain a transfer function that operates in transimpedance
configuration, converting the current to voltage, while also
achieving the desired filtering. The idea of filtering in a tran-
simpedance configuration has been observed before [3], [4].
However, there are certain limitations in the reported architec-
tures. The architecture presented in [3] requires two opamps to
realize the bi-quad, while the circuit presented in [4] requires
two opamps and four operational transconductance amplifiers
(OTAs). This comes with significant area and power overheads.
The circuit presented in [4] is further limited to a single-ended
Manuscript received October 2, 2007; revised November 26, 2007. This paper
was recommended by Associate Editor G. Palumbo.
G. Chandra is with Wireless Terminals Business Unit, Texas Instruments,
Dallas TX 75243 USA (e-mail: gchandra@ti.com).
P. Tadeparthy is with the High Performance Analog Group, Texas Instru-
ments, Bangalore 560093, India.
P. Easwaran is with Cosmic Circuits, Bangalore 560037, India.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCSII.2007.916693
1549-7747/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
differential, for higher immunity to external noise coupling.
Hence, this topology would be unsuitable for high-end system
implementations.
In this work, the authors propose two new generic
bi-quadratic topologies that realize low-pass filtering in
transimpedance active-RC configuration, while using a single
amplifier [5]. The first topology is suited to all-pole filters
(Butterworth, Chebyshev) while the second topology imple-
ments a pair of complex conjugate zeros on the axis (notch)
along with a pair of complex poles, enabling the synthesis of the
more general class of filters (elliptical, inverse Chebyshev). All
the topologies presented here operate in inverting configuration,
and hence suitable for fully differential implementations. The
work presented here restricts itself to low-pass filter applica-
tions, but the idea can be extended to other realizations.
The layout of this paper is as follows. Section II discusses an
all-pole bi-quadratic realization. Section III extends the ideas in
Section II to develop bi-quadratic filters with a pair of complex
conjugate zeros (notch). In Section IV design of a low-pass filter
in a WLAN transceiver is discussed as an application. This is
finally followed by the conclusion.
II. ALL-POLE BI-QUADRATIC IMPLEMENTATION
To get a bi-quadratic topology that works in a transimpedance
configuration with an all-pole response, one needs a structure
that has a current input, voltage output, and has two poles and
no zeros in its transimpedance transfer function. Such a circuit
is shown in Fig. 1. This circuit is obtained as a variation of the
popular single-amplifier topology known as the multiple-feed-
back (MFB) topology [2], [6]. For simplicity of drawing only
the single-ended equivalent of the fully differential circuit is pre-
sented here. The capacitor is connected to input after inver-
sion, introducing positive feedback. This inversion is achieved
CHANDRA et al.: SINGLE AMPLIFIER BI-QUADRATIC FILTER TOPOLOGIES IN TRANSIMPEDANCE CONFIGURATION
by flipping the output wires of the fully differential circuit. The
transfer function is
(1)
which leads to a corner frequency and pole- of
(2)
And pole- factor
(3)
The negative term in the denominator in (3) can be controlled
to obtain very high- values. For low- implementations, the
capacitor may be omitted.
An important consideration for any transimpedance config-
uration is the input impedance behavior. The proposed circuit
achieves ideally zero input impedance at dc, as seen from Fig. 1,
since the capacitors convey no current and hence there is no cur-
rent through resistor . However, at higher frequencies the input
impedance will be finite due to the capacitive current through
the capacitors and . At very high frequencies, though, the
capacitor will provide a low impedance path again. Thus, the
input impedance is bandpass in nature. The transfer function,
when evaluated, confirms the observation
(4)
The input impedance can be reduced, though, by skewing the
resistor ratios. From the above equation, it can be seen that the
maximum input impedance is seen at the corner frequency of
the filter, and is equal to
(5)
It must be noted that for , this reduces to . pleteness, the passive sensitivities
Introducing positive feedback degrades the input impedance
behavior.
For a filter, the dc transimpedance gain is fixed by the
system requirements. Thus, to improve the input impedance be-
havior, can be made much smaller compared to . However,
this impacts the sensitivity of the filter, as will be elaborated later
in this section.
A. Sensitivity Analysis
In the previous section, we observed that the input impedance
of the proposed transimpedance filter is not zero, but can be con-
trolled. In this section we will find that this comes at the cost of
higher sensitivity, although a suitable tradeoff may be obtained.
We use the most commonly used definition of sensitivity, which
is the Bode sensitivity, defined in [7] as
(6)
503
Since for a biquad, the two important parameters are and ,
we will consider the pole- sensitivity and pole-frequency
sensitivity . The sensitivities with respect to passives (each
individual element) as well as active (opamp gain-bandwidth
product) are important. However, for integrated circuit applica-
tions the most important parameter is opamp excess phase [8],
which limits the power dissipation. Hence, only the active sen-
sitivities are discussed in detail. The passive sensitivities would
be identical to the well known MFB biquad, and the reader is
referred to [9]–[12] for a detailed treatment.
Assuming an integrator model for the opamp with a gain-
bandwidth product , following expressions were obtained for
the active sensitivity:
(7)
(8)
For the case , and assuming , (7)–(8) simplify
to
(9)
(10)
While, the expression for maximum input impedance simplifies
to
(11)
To reduce peak input impedance, a large value of is desired,
which degrades the sensitivities. Predictably, the tradeoff is
worse for high- values. As an example, the sensitivity be-
havior against peak input impedance, normalized to , is
plotted in Fig. 2, for and . For the sake of com-
and (sensitivity to
) are also plotted. Gain-bandwidth product of the opamp, ,
is kept as , which is typical of filter designs. In practice, a
suitable design point can be achieved, as will be demonstrated
in Section IV.
III. BI-QUADRATIC IMPLEMENTATION WITH A NOTCH
The topologies presented in Section II have limited applica-
tion in filter design, as these do not have a pair of complex con-
jugate zeros on the axis (notch). For the synthesis of more
general filters like elliptical and inverse Chebyshev, a notch is
also required. In this section, we will develop a topology that
has a pair of complex poles as well as a notch.
To get a notch, the input current needs to see zero transmis-
sion at a purely imaginary frequency. One can utilize the prop-
erties of a perfectly balanced Twin-T network to achieve this
objective. For a balanced Twin-T, the currents through the two
paths are completely out of phase at a purely imaginary fre-
quency, and hence it can provide a transmission zero on -axis.
Embedding a Twin-T network in the forward current path for the
504 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: EXPRESS BRIEFS, VOL. 55, NO. 6, JUNE 2008

assumption, for , the approximate expressions for the

pole-frequency , pole- value , and the notch frequency
are

(16)

(17)

(18)

Alternatively, for a given corner frequency and pole- factor,

the component values can be solved exactly using a computer
program.
Just like the circuit discussed in Section II, this circuit also
shows zero input impedance only at dc, and the impedance is
bandpass in nature. If one ignores the higher order pole, the
expression of the peak input impedance (normalized to tran-
simpedance ) is found to be
Fig. 2. Sensitivity variation with different values of input impedance.

(19)

Assuming , this can be simplified to

(20)

Equation (20) is similar to (11), with a dependence of

Fig. 3. Transimpedance topology with a notch and pair of complex poles.
circuit shown in Fig. 1 leads to the circuit shown in Fig. 3. Here,
is a design parameter that can take any real value, and is used
to adjust the of the circuit. The transfer function of this circuit
is
on the component skew.
Another method to get a better range is to provide capac-
itive feedback at the bridge-T network instead of the input net-
work. This avoids the capacitive loading at the input network.
This circuit is shown in Fig. 4. Because the total capacitance
seen by the Twin-T network is still , the notch is preserved,
but pole -factor can now be adjusted to arbitrarily high values.
The parameter can be varied to obtain arbitrary values of .
The circuit can be used without inversion to obtain conventional
negative feedback, to lower the , instead of enhancing it. For
the circuit in Fig. 4, the denominator polynomial (13)–(14) are
modified to
(21)

(12) (22)

where The expression for peak input impedance is also modified to

(13) (23)

(14)
(15)
The transfer function is actually third order, with a notch and
three poles. Two of these are complex conjugate poles, whose
-factor can be controlled by adjusting the parameter and the
capacitor . The inversion shown in the figure is optional. A
positive value of (without inversion) can be used to reduce
the of the circuit, while the negative value can be used to
enhance the . It can be shown that the third (real) pole lies
at a much higher frequency and can be ignored. With such an
For both the topologies presented in this section, the input
impedance behavior can be controlled by skewing the com-
ponents (making ). This comes at the cost of higher
sensitivity, just like the circuits discussed in Section II. This
tradeoff is now discussed.
A. Sensitivity
Active sensitivity is now discussed for the circuits shown in
Figs. 3 and 4. With the opamp being modeled as an integrator,
the transfer functions are computed and sensitivities evaluated.
The expressions for are presented below.
CHANDRA et al.: SINGLE AMPLIFIER BI-QUADRATIC FILTER TOPOLOGIES IN TRANSIMPEDANCE CONFIGURATION 505

Fig. 4. Alternate approach to achieve better Q-range.

For the circuit in Fig. 3 (using )

(24) Fig. 5. Sensitivity plots for the circuit in Fig. 3.

For the circuit in Fig. 4 (splitting )

(25)

The expressions for , for the circuits shown in Figs. 3 and 4,

are presented in (26), (27). For the circuit in Fig. 3 (using ),
we obtain (26), shown at the bottom of the page. For the circuit
in Fig. 4 (splitting )

(27)
The expressions are tedious, but presented here for the sake of
completeness.
The sensitivities for the circuit in Fig. 3 is plotted against
varying input impedance values, are shown in example Fig. 5.
The figures correspond to , and .
Just like the sensitivity plots shown earlier in Fig. 2, it is Fig. 6. Variation with pole- .Q
seen that the active sensitivity degrades if low values of input
implementations, characteristic of mixed feedback structures.
impedance are desired. The sensitivity plots for the circuit in
Also, the implementation shown in Fig. 4, with the split ca-
Fig. 4 are not shown here, but are similar.
pacitor , is slightly better for high- implementations. But
Fig. 6 illustrates the effectiveness of mixed feedback, by plot-
the circuit in Fig. 3, with the positive feedback capacitor ,
ting the active sensitivity variation for a range of pole- values.
performs better for low- configurations. Based on the sensi-
The sensitivities of both the circuits are plotted, as against the
tivity analysis presented here, an appropriate topology can be
case where no mixed feedback is used. The sensitivities are
selected.
plotted for and . Only the sensi-
tivity is plotted, the results are similar for . From Fig. 6,
it is evident that without the enhancement techniques, the sensi- IV. DESIGN APPLICATION
tivity goes up quadratically with value, approaching very high The ideas developed in the previous two sections are now ap-
values for high- implementations. However, the proposed cir- plied to a design application to illustrate the impedance tradeoff
cuits achieve asymptotically linear dependence on for high- discussed earlier. The application considered here is the receive

(26)
506 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: EXPRESS BRIEFS, VOL. 55, NO. 6, JUNE 2008
Fig. 7. Tradeoff between peak input impedance and sensitivity.
filter for a 802.11b/g wireless local area network (WLAN) di-
rect-conversion transceiver [13]. For this application, a fifth-
order inverse Chebyshev filter was implemented, with two pairs
of complex poles, one real pole and one notch. The first biquad is
implemented in a trans-impedance configuration, with a corner
frequency MHz and . The notch frequency is
MHz. It is optional to put the notch in the first stage. For
the desired corner frequency and pole- , the following compo-
nent values were obtained: k , , k ,
pF, pF.
Above values correspond to the choice . This leads
to an acceptable input impedance behavior with minimal impact
on sensitivity. These component values lead to a total capaci-
tance of 49 pF and output referred noise of 68 V. This was
sufficient to meet the target specifications.
Similarly, the circuit shown in Fig. 4 was implemented to
obtain a notch in the transfer function. The following component
values were computed by a numerical solver: , [7] M. S. Ghausi, “Analog active filters,” IEEE. Trans. Circuits Syst., vol.
k , pF, pF, , CAS-31, no. 1, pp. 13–31, Jan. 1984.
These values lead to the desired pole-zero locations, and an
additional pole at 116 MHz, which indeed can be ignored
as was suggested initially. The noise performance of this circuit
is very similar to the earlier circuit.
It was noted earlier that the circuits proposed here do not offer
zero input impedance, but the impact can be minimized at the
cost of slightly higher sensitivity. Fig. 7 shows the tradeoff be-
tween peak input impedance and the sensitivity, for both the
topologies. These were obtained by choosing the opamp gain-
bandwidth product ( ) to be 100 MHz (ten times the filter
corner frequency). It must be noted that for multitone signals
in WLAN, lower frequencies are significantly attenuated and it
is the average impedance and not the peak impedance, that is
of concern. For the current filter implementation, it was found
that the average impedance was sufficiently low to suppress the
output stage nonlinearity.
It is interesting to note that the tradeoff is slightly worse for
the biquad with notch, as compared to an all-pole implemen-
tation. The higher sensitivity of the structure is the cost paid
for implementing a notch. The operating points for the cur-
rent design examples are marked in the figure. It is evident that
compared to the asymptotic values of minimum sensitivity, the
degradation in sensitivity is not very significant.
V. CONCLUSION
The authors have presented two bi-quadratic active-RC
filter topologies in transimpedance ( -to- ) configuration. The
topologies are derived with the constraint of fully differential
implementation. Though the topologies do not offer ideally
zero input impedance at all frequencies, the effect can be
minimized at the cost of slightly higher sensitivity. The tradeoff
is explained analytically and quantitatively through a design
application. A current mode interface enables lower noise and
a significant reduction in the voltage swing at the mixer/filter
interface, resulting in significant linearity improvements.
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