A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

10
MIXED SIGNAL LETTER A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance Maneesha Gupta Urvashi Singh Received: 18 October 2011 / Revised: 13 April 2012 / Accepted: 23 April 2012 / Published online: 9 May 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract The paper proposes a flipped voltage follower (FVF) cell with wider bandwidth and lower output impedance as compared to the conventional FVF. These improvements are obtained by adding a resistance in the feedback path of conventional FVF. A current mirror is implemented by using proposed FVF cell to verify the performance improvement. The circuits are designed in TSMC 0.18-lm CMOS technology with 1.5 V supply voltage. The simulation results show that bandwidth extension ratio (BWER) of newly developed FVF is 1.4 without peaking and 1.7 with peaking. The BWERs of the passive-compensated current mirror implemented by using proposed FVF cell are 1.28 without peaking and 1.58 with peaking in the frequency response. Keywords Flipped voltage follower Analog integrated circuits Bandwidth Current mirror Resistive compensation technique BWER 1 Introduction On comparing with conventional voltage followers, the flipped voltage follower (FVF) is more developed and improved voltage follower, therefore it is widely used in various analog integrated circuits these days [2, 3]. Some of special features of conventional FVF are [1] that it has almost unity voltage gain on neglecting short-channel effects. It can operate at very low voltage with large current sinking capability and provides low output impedance. The increasing demand of wireless equipments and high speed communication systems has motivated the designers to design mixed-mode integrated circuits with low power consumption and wider bandwidth. Till now, work has mainly being focused on improving the voltage swing [5], and reducing both the output impedance [5, 6] and power supply requirement [7] of voltage follower. However, no work has been done so far in the direction of speed and bandwidth improvement of FVF. In this paper an improved FVF with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance is developed. There are different techniques for bandwidth extension in analog and mixed- signals circuits such as, (i) resistive compensation, (ii) negative-capacitance compensation, (iii) inductive peaking, (iv) feedforward compensation etc. [811]. Out of these techniques, resistive compensation is employed in this paper to enhance the bandwidth of this cell. The addition of a resistance in the feedback path of the FVF increases its impedance, which in turn reduces the current flowing through it. This will force the current to flow through least resistance path which is output path. This increased flow of current to the output node will reduce the charging time of the capacitors loaded at this node, thereby making it to work faster [12]. Simulation results show that the bandwidth of FVF cell increases from 5.058 to 7.1180 GHz i.e. BWER is 1.4. The bandwidths of passive and active-compensated current mirrors introduced in [13] have been improved by replacing conventional one with proposed FVF cell. The paper is organized as follows: In Sect. 2, the small- signal analysis is performed to derive the transfer function and -3 dB frequency of conventional FVF. The -3 dB frequency and output impedance of proposed FVF cell are obtained in Sect. 3. In the next section, the newly M. Gupta (&) U. Singh Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, Sector-3, Dwarka, New Delhi 110078, India e-mail: [email protected] U. Singh e-mail: [email protected] 123 Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288 DOI 10.1007/s10470-012-9864-1

Transcript of A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

Page 1: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

MIXED SIGNAL LETTER

A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidthand low output impedance

Maneesha Gupta • Urvashi Singh

Received: 18 October 2011 / Revised: 13 April 2012 / Accepted: 23 April 2012 / Published online: 9 May 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract The paper proposes a flipped voltage follower

(FVF) cell with wider bandwidth and lower output

impedance as compared to the conventional FVF. These

improvements are obtained by adding a resistance in the

feedback path of conventional FVF. A current mirror is

implemented by using proposed FVF cell to verify the

performance improvement. The circuits are designed in

TSMC 0.18-lm CMOS technology with 1.5 V supply

voltage. The simulation results show that bandwidth

extension ratio (BWER) of newly developed FVF is 1.4

without peaking and 1.7 with peaking. The BWERs of the

passive-compensated current mirror implemented by using

proposed FVF cell are 1.28 without peaking and 1.58 with

peaking in the frequency response.

Keywords Flipped voltage follower � Analog integrated

circuits � Bandwidth � Current mirror � Resistive

compensation technique � BWER

1 Introduction

On comparing with conventional voltage followers, the

flipped voltage follower (FVF) is more developed and

improved voltage follower, therefore it is widely used in

various analog integrated circuits these days [2, 3]. Some

of special features of conventional FVF are [1] that it has

almost unity voltage gain on neglecting short-channel

effects. It can operate at very low voltage with large current

sinking capability and provides low output impedance.

The increasing demand of wireless equipments and high

speed communication systems has motivated the designers

to design mixed-mode integrated circuits with low power

consumption and wider bandwidth. Till now, work has

mainly being focused on improving the voltage swing [5],

and reducing both the output impedance [5, 6] and power

supply requirement [7] of voltage follower. However, no

work has been done so far in the direction of speed and

bandwidth improvement of FVF.

In this paper an improved FVF with enhanced bandwidth

and low output impedance is developed. There are different

techniques for bandwidth extension in analog and mixed-

signals circuits such as, (i) resistive compensation, (ii)

negative-capacitance compensation, (iii) inductive peaking,

(iv) feedforward compensation etc. [8–11]. Out of these

techniques, resistive compensation is employed in this paper

to enhance the bandwidth of this cell. The addition of a

resistance in the feedback path of the FVF increases its

impedance, which in turn reduces the current flowing

through it. This will force the current to flow through least

resistance path which is output path. This increased flow of

current to the output node will reduce the charging time of

the capacitors loaded at this node, thereby making it to work

faster [12]. Simulation results show that the bandwidth of

FVF cell increases from 5.058 to 7.1180 GHz i.e. BWER is

1.4. The bandwidths of passive and active-compensated

current mirrors introduced in [13] have been improved by

replacing conventional one with proposed FVF cell.

The paper is organized as follows: In Sect. 2, the small-

signal analysis is performed to derive the transfer function

and -3 dB frequency of conventional FVF. The -3 dB

frequency and output impedance of proposed FVF cell

are obtained in Sect. 3. In the next section, the newly

M. Gupta (&) � U. Singh

Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, Sector-3, Dwarka,

New Delhi 110078, India

e-mail: [email protected]

U. Singh

e-mail: [email protected]

123

Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288

DOI 10.1007/s10470-012-9864-1

Page 2: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

developed FVF cell is then used in the current mirrors

suggested in [13]. The simulation results of the conven-

tional and proposed circuits are given in Sect. V. Finally

comparisons are made between conventional circuits and

improved circuits on the basis of simulation results, and

some conclusions are drawn in the last section.

2 Analysis of flipped voltage follower

The circuit of FVF is shown in Fig. 1(a) [1]. The conven-

tional FVF is a cascode amplifier. It is a negative feedback

circuit with series-shunt topology [14] where the feedback

is provided by transistor M2. Due to shunt configuration on

output side of FVF, the output impedance of FVF is low,

leading to high current sinking capability which is limited

by bias current Ib. On neglecting both the short-channel

effect and body effect, it is observed that the output current

variations are absorbed by transistor M2 and current

through transistor M1 is essentially constant i.e. indepen-

dent of output current. This will force gate to source voltage

to be constant and thus ensuring the unity voltage gain.

The other attractive features of FVF include low supply

voltage (VDDmin = VGS2 ? VDSSat) [5] requirement, low

static power dissipation and low distortion even at high

frequencies.

The transfer function of FVF can be obtained from the

small signal model, shown in Fig. 1(b). During analytical

formulation of FVF, it has been assumed that source of

each transistor is connected to its substrate and simulations

are also performed on the basis of same assumption.

The notations used in the analysis are as follows: ro1 and

ro2 are the resistances due to channel length modulation

effect, Cgs1 and Cgs2 are the gate to source capacitances,

gm1 and gm2 are the transconductances of M1 and M2

respectively. Rb is the output impedance of the current

source and Vgs2 stands for gate to source voltage of M2.

On applying KCL at nodes (a) and (b) in small signal

model of conventional FVF (Fig. 1(b)), we get

sCgs1ðVout � VinÞ þ gm2Vgs2 � gm1ðVin � VoutÞ

þ ðVout � Vgs2Þro1

þ Vout

ro2

¼ 0 ð1Þ

ðVgs2 � VoutÞro1

þ sCgs2Vgs2 þVgs2

Rbþ gm1ðVin � VoutÞ ¼ 0

ð2Þ

Using Eqs. (1) and (2) the voltage gain Av(s) of FVF is

obtained as

M 2

VDD

RbIb

M 1

Vout

Vin

VSS

Cgs2

vgs2G2

vin

vout

gm2vgs2

gm1vgs1Cgs1

RbS1

D2

ro1

ro2

S2

G1 D1

(a)

(b)

(a) (b)Fig. 1 a Conventional FVF [1].

b Small-signal model of

conventional FVF

AvðsÞ ¼s2Cgs1Cgs2r2

o1ro2Rb þ sro1ro2 Cgs1ðRb þ ro1Þ þ Cgs2gm1ro1Rb

� �þ gm1gm2r2

o1ro2Rb þ gm1r2o1ro2

� �

s2Cgs1Cgs2r2o1ro2Rb þ sro1 Cgs1ro2ðRb þ ro1Þ þ Cgs2Rbðro1 þ ro2Þ þ Cgs2gm1ro1ro2Rb

� �þ gm1gm2r2

o1ro2Rb þ gm1r2o1ro2 þ gm2ro1ro2Rb þ ro1Rb þ ro1ðro1 þ ro2Þ

ð3Þ

280 Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288

123

Page 3: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

Assuming ro1 = ro2 = ro and Cgs1 = Cgs2 = Cgs in

Eq. (3) and after simplifying it, we get

Using the assumptions gmxRb � 1 and gmxro � 1 (where,

x = 1, 2) in Eq. (4) then, transfer function is reduced to

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ s Rbþroð Þ

CgsroRbþ gm1

Cgs

� �n oþ gm1gm2

C2gs

� �

s2 þ s Rbþroð ÞCgsroRb

þ gm1

Cgs

� �n oþ gm1gm2

C2gs

� �þ Rbþ2ro

C2gsro

2Rb

� �

ð5Þ

Also,

Rb þ roð ÞCgsroRb

þ gm1

Cgs

� ¼ Rb þ ro þ gm1roRb

CgsroRbffi gm1

Cgs

� ð6Þ

Finally,

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ s gm1

Cgs

� �þ gm1gm2

C2gs

� �

s2 þ s gm1

Cgs

� �þ gm1gm2

C2gs

� �þ Rbþ2ro

C2gsro

2Rb

� � ð7Þ

It can be expressed as

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ a1sþ a2

s2 þ a1sþ ða2 þ Da2Þð8Þ

where a1 ¼ ðgm1=CgsÞ, a2 ¼ ðgm1gm2=C2gsÞ and Da2 ¼

ðRb þ 2roÞ=C2gsr

2oRb

n o

From Eq. (8) the zeros and poles of the conventional

FVF are found to be

Z1;2 ¼�a1

21�

ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

1� 4a2

a21

� s" #

ð9Þ

P1;2 ¼�a1

21�

ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

1� 4a2 þ Da2ð Þ

a21

� s" #

ð10Þ

From Eq. (7) the -3 dB frequency is given by

xo ¼

ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2gm1gm2

C2gs

!

� gm1

Cgs

� 2

�2Rb þ 2ro

C2gsr

2oRb

!( )vuut ð11Þ

It is shown in [1] that the output impedance of

conventional FVF is

ZOUT ¼1

gm1gm2roð12Þ

In this work the FVF cell is modified to achieve

extremely large bandwidth and very low output impedance

by using a resistor in the feedback path, which is discussed

and analyzed in the next section.

3 Proposed flipped voltage follower

3.1 Circuit implementation

The circuit implementation of the proposed FVF is shown

in Fig. 2(a). The introduction of a resistor (R) in the

feedback path, between drain terminal of M1 and gate

terminal of M2, will increase the impedance of feedback

path which causes delaying of current flow in the feedback

path. This increased current initially charges the output

parasitic capacitance and hence the rise-time at the output

node will reduce. This method of reducing the delay time

and hence increasing the bandwidth with the help of a

resistance is called resistive compensation.

3.2 Analysis of transfer function

The small-signal model of proposed FVF is shown in

Fig. 2(b). In the analysis, R stands for the resistance which

is employed in the feedback path of the FVF and Vd1 is the

voltage at the drain terminal of M2. The transfer function

of new FVF is obtained by applying KCL at nodes a, b and

c in the small-signal model shown in Fig. 2(b). On

applying KCL at nodes a, b and c, we get

sCgs1ðVout � VinÞ þ gm2Vgs2 � gm1ðVin � VoutÞ

þ ðVout � Vd1Þro1

þ Vout

ro2

¼ 0 ð13Þ

ðVd1 � VoutÞro1

þ ðVd1 � Vgs2ÞR

þ Vd1

Rbþ gm1ðVin � VoutÞ ¼ 0

ð14Þ

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ s Rbþroð Þ

CgsroRbþ gm1

Cgs

� �n oþ gm1gm2

C2gs

� �þ gm1

C2gsRb

� �

s2 þ s Rbþroð ÞCgsroRb

þ 2Cgsro

� �þ gm1

Cgs

� �n oþ gm1gm2

C2gs

� �þ gm2

C2gsro

� �þ gm1

C2gsRb

� �þ Rbþ2ro

C2gsr

2oRb

� � ð4Þ

Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288 281

123

Page 4: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

ðVgs2 � Vd1ÞR

þ sCgs2Vgs2 ¼ 0 ð15Þ

On solving the above equations, the voltage gain Av(s) is

found to be

By choosing ro1 = ro2 = ro and Cgs1 = Cgs2 = Cgs and

simplification of Eq. (16), on the basis of assumptions

taken in Eq. (5), will lead to

We can write Eq. (17) as

Vout

Vin

V

(a) (b)

DD

RbIb

VSS

R

M 1

M 2

(b) G2

Cgs2

vd1 D1

vin

vout

gm2vgs2

gm1vgs1 Cgs1

Rb S1

D2

ro1

ro2

S2

G1

R

vgs2

(a)

(c)

Fig. 2 a Proposed FVF.

b Small-signal model of

proposed FVF

AvðsÞ ¼s2Cgs1Cgs2ro1ro2 RðRb þ ro1Þ þ Rbro1f g þ sro1ro2 Cgs1ðRb þ ro1Þ þ Cgs2gm1ro1ðRb þ RÞ

� �þ gm1gm2r2

o1ro2Rb þ gm1r2o1ro2

� �

s2Cgs1Cgs2ro1ro2 RðRb þ ro1Þ þ Rbro1f g þ sro1 Cgs1ro2ðRb þ ro1Þ þ Cgs2gm1ro1ro2ðRb þ RÞ þ Cgs2RRb

� �þ gm1gm2r2

o1ro2Rb þ gm1r2o1ro2 þ gm2ro1ro2Rb

� �

ð16Þ

AvðsÞ ¼s2 RðRb þ roÞ þ Rbrof g þ s Rbþroð Þ

Cgsþ gm1roðRbþRÞ

Cgs

� �n oþ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs

� �

s2 RðRb þ roÞ þ Rbrof g þ s Rbþroð ÞCgsþ gm1roðRbþRÞ

Cgs

� �þ RRb

Cgsro

� �n oþ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs

� � ð17Þ

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ 1

R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g s Rbþroð ÞCgsþ gm1roðRbþRÞ

Cgs

� �n oþ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs

� �h i

s2 þ 1R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g s Rbþroð Þ

Cgsþ gm1roðRbþRÞ

Cgs

� �þ RRb

Cgsro

� �n oþ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs

� �h i ð18Þ

282 Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288

123

Page 5: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

If we assume gm1R� 1 and gm1ro � 1 then,

ðRb þ roÞCgs

þ gm1roðRb þ RÞCgs

¼ 1

CgsRb þ ro þ gm1roðRb þ RÞ½ � ffi gm1roðRb þ RÞ

Cgs

ð19Þ

Using Eq. (19) in Eq. (18), we get

The transfer function can be expressed as

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ b1sþ b2

s2 þ ðb1 þ Db1Þsþ b2

ð21Þ

where, b1 ¼ gm1roðRbþRÞCgs R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g

� �, Db1 ¼ RRb

Cgsro R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g

� �

and b2 ¼ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g

� �

The zeros and poles of the proposed FVF are given by

Z1;2 ¼�b1

21�

ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

1� 4b2

b21

� s" #

ð22Þ

P1;2 ¼ �b1 þ Db1

2

� 1�

ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

1� 4b2

ðb1 þ Db1Þ2

!vuut

2

4

3

5

ð23Þ

From Eq. (20) the -3 dB frequency of proposed FVF is

given by

On comparing Eqs. (10) and (23) it is obvious that in

case of modified FVF, the poles of transfer function have

moved apart as compared to the earlier case and this sep-

aration can be controlled by the feedback resistor R.

Equations (11) and (24) are justifying that there is an

increment in the -3 dB frequency of the conventional FVF

cell by using resistive compensation technique.

3.3 Analysis of output impedance

The output impedance of proposed FVF is calculated by

using conventional method that is connecting a test voltage

source at the output and measuring the current flowing into

the circuit, while the input source is grounded. The circuit

for output impedance calculation is shown in Fig. 3.

The output impedance of proposed FVF is found to be

ZOUT ¼ro2Rb

gm1ro1Rb þ gm1gm2ro1ro2ðRb þ RÞ ð25Þ

By using ro1 = ro2 = ro, and after simplification the

output impedance is modified as

ZOUT ¼Rb

gm1Rb þ gm1gm2roðRb þ RÞ ð26Þ

It can be observed from Eq. (26) that by increasing value

of feedback resistance R, the output impedance of the

improved FVF will decrease. But the value of R can not be

taken arbitrarily large as the decrement in output

impedance is limited by peaking in the frequency response.

4 Application of proposed fvf (in a current mirror)

Current mirrors are widely used building blocks in many

applications. As a building block in an analog signal

processing circuit the attributes of a current mirror are

that, it should have accurate current copy, wide input and

output current swings, high output impedance and high

linearity. The key issues in the design of a current mirror

are the improvement of high-frequency characteristic and

the realization of high-output impedance. Since conven-

tional current mirrors have high power dissipation and

AvðsÞ ¼s2 þ 1

R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g s gm1roðRbþRÞCgs

� �þ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs

� �h i

s2 þ 1R Rbþroð ÞþRbrof g s gm1roðRbþRÞ

Cgs

� �þ RRb

Cgsro

� �n oþ gm1gm2roRb

C2gs

� �h i ð20Þ

xo ¼

ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2gm1gm2roRb

C2gs R Rb þ roð Þ þ Rbrof g

!

� gm1roðRb þ RÞCgs R Rb þ roð Þ þ Rbrof g

� 2

þ RRb

Cgsro R Rb þ roð Þ þ Rbrof g

� 2

þ2gm1roðRb þ RÞ

Cgs R Rb þ roð Þ þ Rbrof g

� RRb

Cgsro R Rb þ roð Þ þ Rbrof g

� ( )vuut

ð24Þ

Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288 283

123

Page 6: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

low bandwidth, they are not reliable to be used in low-

voltage wideband circuit. Hence it is needed to design

new current mirrors to meet the requirements of low-

voltage wideband analog and mixed signal processing

circuits.

Gupta et al. [13] have enhanced the bandwidth of FVF

based current mirror [4] by introducing passive [8] and

active resistance [15] at the gate of primary transistor

pair of the current mirror in [13]. There was approxi-

mately 200 MHz improvement in the bandwidth of pas-

sively and actively compensated current mirrors. In this

paper the proposed FVF cell is used in place of con-

ventional one in the low voltage current mirrors sug-

gested in [13]. The conventional current mirror using

FVF [4], passive-compensated current mirror [13] and

modified current mirror using proposed FVF cell are

shown in Fig. 4(a–c) respectively. Figure 5(a) shows the

active-compensated current mirror suggested in [13] and

the modified version of Fig. 5(a) is shown in Fig. 5(b).

The simulation results of all the circuits are discussed in

the next section.

5 Simulation results

The proposed circuits are designed in TSMC 0.18-lm

CMOS technology and simulated with Spectre with supply

voltage of 1.5 V. The FVF cells are simulated by using

1 mA bias current and sizes of transistors M1 and M2 are

(36/1.2-um) and (24/1.2-um) respectively.

Figure 6 shows the frequency response of conventional

FVF and proposed FVF cell. The bandwidth of proposed

FVF cell increases from 5.058 to 7.1186 GHz when 1.8 K

resistance is used in the feedback path. The frequency

response depends on the value of feedback resistance R.

After a certain value of R, peaking is observed and

approximately 1.7 BWER is obtained at 6 K. The -3 dB

frequencies of conventional and proposed FVF are

numerically evaluated from Eqs. (11) and (23). For

iout

gm1vgs1 o1

Rb

R vgs2

G2 D1

vd1

± gm2vgs2

r

ro2

D2

S1

S2

vout

Fig. 3 Small-signal model of proposed FVF for output impedance

calculation

M8

VSS

M7

M4 M5

M6

M3

V(a)

(c)

(b)

DD

VBIAS

IIN IOUT

IOUT

M3

M6

M8

VDD

VBIAS

IIN

M1 M2

M1 M2

M5 M4

VSS

M7

RCOMP

VBIAS

IIN

M2 M3

VSS

VDD

IOUT

M1

M5 M6 M4

8M 7M

RCOMP

R

Fig. 4 a Current mirror using conventional FVF [4]. b Passive-

compensated current mirror [13]. c Modified current mirror with

proposed FVF cell (RCOMP and R are compensating and feedback

resistance respectively)

284 Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288

123

Page 7: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

conventional FVF and proposed FVF (with R = 1.8 K),

the errors between the simulated and theoretically evalu-

ated -3 dB frequencies are found to be 3.81 % and

-4.81 % respectively (Table 1).

An improvement of 1.2 GHz in bandwidth is achieved

by using proposed FVF in passive-compensated current

mirror [13]. However maximum BWER is 1.6 when

peaking is observed in the frequency response. These fre-

quency responses are shown in Fig. 7. The frequency

response of actively compensated current mirror by using

improved FVF cell is shown in Fig. 8. The BWER of

improved active-compensated current mirror is 1.2. The

simulation results are summarized in Table 2.

The variations of output impedance of conventional and

improved FVF cells with frequency are shown in Fig. 9. It

can be observed from Fig. 9 that output impedance of

proposed FVF is lower as compared to the conventional

FVF.

M6

IIN

M2 3M1M

(a)

(b)

VDD

M9

M10

IOUTItu

M4 M5

M7 MCOMP

VSS

Itu

VBIAS

VDD

11M8M7MMCOMP

VSS

Itu

M2 3M1MM9

M4 M5

M8 M11

M6 M10

IIN IOUT

Itu

VBIAS

R

Fig. 5 a Active-compensated current mirror [13]. b Modified active-

compensated current mirror with proposed FVF cell (MCOMP is the

transistor used for active-compensation)

Fig. 6 Frequency responses of

FVF cells

Table 1 Simulated and theoretical bandwidth comparison of con-

ventional and proposed FVF cells

Flipped voltage follower (FVF)

Simulated circuit Conventional Proposed FVF

(R = 1.8 K)

Bandwidth in GHz (simulation) 5.058 7.118

Bandwidth in GHz (theoretical) 5.259 6.787

Error (%) 3.82 -4.87

Basic transistor parameters are: (W/L) 1 = (36/1.2), (W/L) 2 = (24/

1.2) and Ib = 1 mA

Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288 285

123

Page 8: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

Fig. 8 Frequency responses of

active-compensated current

mirror

Fig. 7 Frequency responses of

passive-compensated current

mirror

Table 2 Bandwidth of various simulated circuits

Simulated

Circuits

Flipped voltage follower (FVF) Current mirror (CM)

Conventional Proposed

FVF

(without

peaking)

Proposed

FVF

(with

peaking)

Conventional Passively

compensated

CM

Passively

compensated CM

with proposed FVF

cell (without

peaking)

Passively

compensated CM

with proposed

FVF cell (with

peaking)

Actively

compensated

CM

Actively

compensated

CM with

proposed FVF

cell

Bandwidth

in GHz

5.058 7.11865 8.377 4.037 4.5 5.206 6.395 4.427 5.02

286 Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288

123

Page 9: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

6 Conclusion

In this paper, a high-speed FVF cell is developed by using

resistive compensation technique. The bandwidth of mod-

ified FVF increases from 5.05 to 7.1 GHz as compared to

conventional FVF. It has been shown by small-signal

analysis that -3 dB frequency of proposed FVF cell

increases and at the same time its output impedance

reduces. This improvement in bandwidth is dependent on

the value of resistor which is added in the feedback path.

The application of proposed FVF cell in the low voltage

current mirror has also been investigated.

References

1. Carvajal, R., Ramirez-Angulo, J., Lopez Martin, A., Torralba, A.,

Galan, J., Carlosena, A., et al. (2005). The flipped voltage fol-

lower: A useful cell for low voltage low power circuit design.

IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, 52(7), 1276–1279.

doi:10.1109/TCSI.2005.851387.

2. Sakul, C., & Dejhan, K. (2010). Squaring and square-root circuits

based on flipped voltage follower and applications. InternationalJournal of Information Systems and Telecommunication Engi-neering, 1, 19–24.

3. Ramirez-Angulo, J., Carvajal, R., Torralba, A., Galan, J., Vega-

Leal, A. P., et al. (2002). Low-power low-voltage analog

electronic circuits using the flipped voltage follower. IEEEIndustrial Electronics, 4, 1327–1330. doi:10.1109/ISIE.2002.10

25983.

4. Koliopoulos, C., & Psychalinos, C. (2007). A comparative study

of the performance of the flipped voltage follower based low

voltage current mirror. IEEE International Symposium on Sig-nals, Circuits and Systems, 1, 1–4. doi:10.1109/ISSCS.2007.

4292650.

5. Lai, S., Zhang, H., Chen, G., & Xu, J. (2008). An improved

source follower with wide swing and low output impedance. In

IEEE Asia Pacific conference on circuits and systems (pp.

814–818). doi:10.1109/APCCAS.2008.4746147.

6. Ramirez-Angulo, J., Gupta, S., Padilla, I., Carvajal, R. G.,

Torralba, A., Jimenez, M., et al. (2005). Comparison of con-

ventional and new flipped voltage structures with increased input/

output signal swing & current sourcing/sinking capabilities. In

48th IEEE midwest symposium on circuits and systems (Vol. 2,

pp. 1151-1154). doi:10.1109/MWSCAS.2005.1594310.

7. Haga, Y., & Kale, I. (2009). Bulk-driven flipped voltage follower.

IEEE International symposium on circuits and systems (pp.

2717–2720). doi:10.1109/ISCAS.2009.5118363.

8. Voo, T., & Toumazou, C. (1995). High-speed current mirror

resistive compensation technique. IEE Electronics Letters, 31(4),

248–250. doi:10.1049/el:19950207.

9. Comer, D. J., Comer, D. T., Perkins, J. B., Clark, K. D., & Genz,

A. P. C. (2006). Bandwidth extension of high-gain CMOS stages

using active negative capacitance. In:13th IEEE internationalconference on circuits and systems, electronics (pp. 628–631)

doi:10.1109/ICECS.2006.379867.

10. Shekhar, S., Walling, J. S., & Allstot, D. J. (2006). Bandwidth

extension techniques for CMOS amplifiers. IEEE Journal ofSolid-State Circuits, 41(11), 2424–2439. doi:10.1109/JSSC.

2006.883336.

11. Sansen, W., & Chang, Z. Y. (1990). Feedforward compensation

techniques for high-frequency CMOS amplifiers. IEEE Journal ofSolid-State Circuits, 25(6), 1590–1595. doi:10.1109/4.62197.

12. Thomas, H. Lee. (2004). The design of CMOS radio-frequencyintegrated circuits (2nd ed.). UK: Cambridge University Press.

13. Gupta, M., Aggarwal, P., Singh, P., & Jindal, N. K. (2009). Low

voltage current mirrors with enhanced bandwidth. Analog Inte-grated Circuits and Signal Processing, 59(1), 97–103. doi:

10.1007/s10470-008-9241-2.

14. Sedra, A. S., & Smith, K. C. (2005). Microelectronics circuits(5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

15. Voo, T., & Toumazou, C. (1996). Precision temperature stabi-

lised tunable CMOS current-mirror for filter applications. IEEElectronics Letters, 32(2), 105–106. doi:10.1094/el:19960069.

Fig. 9 Variations of output

impedance with frequency of

conventional FVF and proposed

FVF

Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288 287

123

Page 10: A new flipped voltage follower with enhanced bandwidth and low output impedance

Maneesha Gupta B.E. in

Electronics and Communication

Engineering from Government

Engineering College, Jabalpur

in 1981, M.E. in Electronics and

Communication Engineering

from Government Engineering

College, Jabalpur in 1983 and

Ph.D. in Electronics Engineer-

ing (Analysis, Synthesis and

Applications of Switched

Capacitor Circuits) from Indian

Institute of Technology, Delhi

in 1990. She is working as

Professor in the Division of

Electronics and Communication Engineering of the Netaji Subhas

Institute of Technology, New Delhi from 2008. She is working in the

areas of Switched Capacitors Circuits and low voltage design tech-

niques. She has co-authored over 30 research papers in the above

areas in various international/national journals and conferences.

Urvashi Singh received the

M.Sc. degree in electronics and

communication from CSJM

University and M.Tech. degree

in VLSI design from MITS

University, India in 2007 and

2009 respectively. During

2009–2010, she was a lecturer

in GLA University, Mathura,

India. She is currently working

toward the Ph.D. degree at

Netaji Subhas Institute of

Technology (NSIT), New Delhi,

India. Since August 2010, she

has been with NSIT, where her

research focuses on design of analog integrated circuits for broadband

applications. She is also working on analog circuit characterization at

both schematic and layout level. She has thorough experience on

working with various industry-standard VLSI design tools (Mentor

Graphics TC status; Cadence Virtuoso).

288 Analog Integr Circ Sig Process (2012) 72:279–288

123