Design constraints of high performance chopping signal conditioning circuits for integrated sensors

The design of low-noise low-power dual chopper amplifiers (DCAs) for sensors is investigated. The DCA minimizes the power consumption and noise by chopping the signals at two frequencies. The functionality of the single and dual chopper amplifiers, including noise and optimized power consumption are presented. DCA performance with respect to power, noise and power-noise product is compared with that of the single chopper amplifier. A low-noise low-power DCA is designed and simulated in 0.13 μm CMOS technology with a supply of 1.2V to illustrate the design methodology.