Low-power wide-bandwidth CMOS indirect current feedback instrumentation amplifier

Abstract

The analysis and design trade-offs of a simple and economical technique to implement wideband low-voltage CMOS instrumentation amplifiers (IAs) based on indirect current feedback (ICF), are described. The input and an output transconductors consist of two super-source-followers and a resistor. As a result, the overall performance of the IA is enhanced. A thorough analysis of the proposed technique provided valuable insight on its operation. Two different realizations in 0.35-μm CMOS technology of an IA operating with a supply voltage of 3 V, are presented. In particular, a wide bandwidth single-stage IA with fixed voltage gain equal to 50 V/V and a low-power two-stage IA with externally programmable voltage gain, have been designed and characterized by extensive simulations. The simulated results of both circuits showed an improved response in terms of bandwidth, noise and power consumption, while their overall performance is comparable to other proposed approaches in terms of common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) and linearity (THD).