Design and Simulation of Carbon Nanotube Based Current Source Load Differential Amplifier

In this paper, we design and simulate a current source load differential amplifier (CSL-DA) employing n-type carbon-nanotube field effect transistors (CNTFET). The proposed DA employs current source load and is based on 45nm technology node CNTFETs. The performance of the proposed CNTFET based DA has been compared with the conventional metal oxide semiconductor FET (MOSFET) based DA. The HSPICE simulation study has shown a substantial improvement in various important performance measuring parameters in the proposed DA in comparison to the conventional DA. The performance enhancement in the proposed device can be attributed to the unique properties of CNTs. It has been observed that the CNTFET based DA has got 2.7 times enhancement in gain, three orders increase in bandwidth, 1180 times increase in unity gain bandwidth and ~70% reduction in power consumption compared to the conventional MOS based counterpart. Further, optimizing various CNT parameters like number of CNTs (N), CNT pitch (S), CNT diameter can optimize the performance of the proposed DA further.