Low noise, high linearity Gilbert cell transconductor

This paper describes techniques to reduce the effects of parasitic emitter resistance in the Gilbert current gain-cell. The technique is further developed to be employed in a Gilbert cell transconductor (GCT), which offers improved characteristics in terms of linearity and noise performance over the conventional GCT. The deliberate addition of resistors to the gain-cell offers a better noise performance than that of the conventional GCT, while an improvement in linearity is achieved by using a transconductance summation technique to give an overall flatter response.