E3 238 Analog VLSI Circuits

Lecture 21: Operational Amplifiers

Gaurab Banerjee
Department of Electrical Communication Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
banerjee@ece.iisc.ernet.in
 Operational Amplifiers
-> Originally defined as general purpose amplifiers with
• Very large gain (ideally infinite)
• Very high input impedance
• Very low output impedance
-> In IC implementations, op amps are designed for specific applications: speed, voltage
swing, power dissipation, etc. General purpose op-amp designs are generally not
used in ICs:
• On chip op-amps are more like transconductors with high output impedance
(like a VCCS) : operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs)
• Parameters of interest:
• Gain: 1000 (typical CS gmRD = 10)
• Small signal BW or UGF: set by the location of the dominant pole, typical
value of Aω3dB = ωu = a few GHz
• Large signal bandwidth -> slew rate (to be discussed)
• Output swing: input changes by several orders of magnitude
• Linearity: differential amplifier, feedback
• Noise, offsets, CMRR, PSRR etc.

One op-amp does not work for all applications -> use relevant trade-offs
Telescopic Cascode Op-Amps

Single Ended Differential

 Telescopic Cascode Op-Amps
-> Gain of the order of
-> Let us assume:

-> Higher gain at the cost of output swing and additional poles
-> Output swing in the differential version:

-> SE output version suffers from mirror pole

 Concept of Mirror Pole
Output Pole ->

Output Pole
Mirror
Pole Mirror Pole ->

Gm node -> high frequency pole.

But, CE is large due to CGS3 + CGS4
-> So, ωp2 is not very far from ωp1
-> Stability Issues in feedback circuits

Fully differential amplifiers do not suffer

the effects of a mirror pole unless the
signal is folded with a current mirror
 Shorting Input to Output

Voltage Sensing
Feedback
Shorted for a part
of the clock cycle

Without Feedback->

With Feedback->

-> Output impedance can be lowered to drive other loads (e.g. 50 Ohms): Unity
Gain buffer is commonly used in such applications.
Problem Shorting Input to Output
To keep M2 and M4 in saturation

M2 ->

Input and
output
shorted

M4 ->

Allowable swing
at output is less
than 1-threshold
-> Cannot be
used in UG
feedback
 Folded Cascode Op-Amp
Basic Idea: Replace input device with that of opposite type -> No stacking needed
Folded Cascode: Differential Implementation
-> In Telescopic Cascode op-amp, ISS provides the bias for input and
cascode devices. In a Folded Cascode, the input pair requires
additional bias current

-> Input CM determined by:

Keep M1/M2 in Saturation
=>

-> For the second stage:

Compare to telescopic
cascode: no maximum
common mode
limitation
-> So, the input and output can be shorted without swing limitation
-> In reality, VDD-VCSS - |Vthp| sets the upper limit -> still much larger
-> Folded cascode preferred for Unity Gain op-amps
 Folded Cascode Op-Amp

Input node can swing

down to VSS -> big
advantage!
 Folded Cascode: O/P Swing Calculation

-> In practice, M5 and M6 may need to be small to Common

minimize capacitance at X and Y -> Large Overdrive misconception: Folded
Cascode has a huge
-> So, telescopic and folded cascodes have similar swing advantage
swings
 Folded Cascode Op-Amp
-> Voltage Gain:

-> Frequency Response:

Additional capacitance
due to folding node ->
comparable or worse
frequency response

-> Noise can also be slightly higher due to additional devices

-> Advantages:
• Slightly higher swing, inputs and outputs can be shorted
• Input CM close to one rail, use complementary pairs to extend CM range
-> Disadvantage of Cascodes in general : gain trades off with swing
-> What if both high gain and large swing are required? -> Two stage op-amps …
Two Stage Op-Amps
 Two Stage Op-Amps
-> Stage Gains:

-> Cascaded gain comparable to cascode amplifiers

-> Swing:

-> Cascading more than 2 stages is problematic since each node adds a pole
-> First stage may be “cascoded” to increase gain
-> More than 2 stages rarely used due to 1 pole/stage
-> Another way of increasing gain: gain boosting or regulated cascode