The Conjugated Current Mirrors: A General Enhancement in Transconductance Amplifiers

This work presents a general enhancement in operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) by conjugating the diode-connected topologies of the current mirrors (CMs). The proposed conjugation method provides an internal high-impedance node, by which the transconductance of the amplifier is significantly increased. Since the central node of the conjugated CMs is virtually grounded for small differential signals, the cascode devices of the diode-connected topologies can be employed as an extra differential pair causing a further enhancement in transconductance. Moreover, the large signal behavior of the circuit shows that the conjugated CMs are capable of copying a dynamic current with a higher gain in comparison with a traditional CM amplifier. This advantage results in faster charging and discharging of the output capacitive load, which provides a larger slew rate (SR) without increasing the quiescent current. The proposed amplifier was manufactured with TSMC 0.18-
$\mu $
m CMOS technology occupying a silicon area of
$55.5\times 48.9~\mu $
m. Experimental results at a supply voltage of 1.8 V show a gain bandwidth (GBW) of 104.9 MHz, a dc gain of 79.1 dB, and an SR of 55.7 V/
$\mu $
s for a capacitive load of 10 pF, while the circuit consumes 489-
$\mu $
W power.