A 0.3-V 98-dB Rail-to-Rail OTA in 0.18 um CMOS

Abstract

A new solution for an ultra-low-voltage, ultra-low-power operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) is presented in the paper. The design exploits a three-stage structure with a Reversed Miller Compensation Scheme, where the input stage is based on a non-tailed bulk-driven differential pair. Optimization of the structure for very low supply voltage is discussed. The resulting amplifier outperforms other ultra-low-voltage OTAs in terms of a DC voltage gain and power efficiency, expressed by standard figures of merit. Experimental verification using a 0.18 mu m CMOS technology, with supply voltage of 0.3-V, showed a dissipation power of 13 nW, a DC voltage gain of 98 dB, a gain-bandwidth product of 3.1 kHz and an average slew-rate of 9.1 V/ms at 30 pF load capacitance. The experimental results agree well with simulations.