MWSCAS 2006

Circuit Techniques for Operational Amplifier Speed and Accuracy Improvement: Analog Circuit Design with Structural Methodology

Lecturer(s)

Vadim V. Ivanov and Igor M. Filanovsky

Abstract

OpAmp is the main analog building block for both the systems on discrete elements and systems on silicon. The parameters of OpAmp often define and limit the overall system performance. CMOS technology provides an opportunity to use more complex structural solutions and circuit techniques to improve OpAmp accuracy, power/speed ratio, to add new functional advantages, like low voltage supply operation capability or rail to rail input without the switching point, everything for negligible additional component cost. The circuit techniques that will be demonstrated during this course were proven in design of leading industrial OpAmps. These techniques are unified by a common structural design approach, based on the following principles:

system analysis at the high level of abstraction using the graphic t oo ls like signal flow graphs, and generation of the set of equivalent graph modifications,
equivalent graph transformations to the form when every important parameter in the system or the amplifier is controlled by a dedicated feedback loop;
stability of these loops is achieved without compensation capacitors, by using one-stage (preferably current) amplifiers,
system synthesis consists of implementation of the set of the gain structure modifications followed by simulations based on available library of cells, and final selection of the best circuit solutions.

Code: 8A

Cost: US $200 (Please check tutorials fees)

Brief Biographies

Vadim Ivanov: MSEE 1980, Ph.D. 1987, both from the Institute of Electrical Engineering, St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Ivanov worked in Leningrad, and investigated, designed and developed electronic systems and ASICs for naval navigation equipment from 1980 to 1991, and mixed signal ASICs for sensors, GPS/GLONASS receivers and motor control from 1991 to 1995.Dr. Ivanov joined Burr Brown Corp. (presently Texas Instruments Inc., Tucson) in 1996 as a senior member of technical staff, where he is involved in design of the operational, instrumentation, and power amplifiers, voltage references and switching and linear voltage regulators. Dr. Ivanov has 33 US patents, with more pending, on analog circuit techniques. He is the author and coauthor of more than 30 technical papers and three books: Integrated Power Amplifiers (Leningrad, Rumb, 1987), Analog system design with ASICs (Leningrad, Rumb, 1988), both in Russian, and Operational Amplifier Speed and Accuracy Improvement, Kluwer, 2004.

Igor M. Filanovsky: MSEE (with honors), 1962, and PhD, 1968, both from the Institute of Electrical Engineering, St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. I.M. Filanovsky has held senior research positions at the Research Institute of High Frequency Currents and the Research and Development Corporation GIRICOND, St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1976, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Alberta, Canada where he is currently a Professor. He contributed to four books, Sensor Technology and Devices, L. Ristic, Ed., (Norwell, MA: Artech House, 1994), Analog VLSI: Signal and Information Processing, M. Ismail and T. Fiez, Eds., (New York: Mc-Graw-Hill, 1994), The Circuits and Filters Handbook, W.-K. Chen, Ed., (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1995), The Electronics Handbook, J. Whitaker, Ed., (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1996), a co-authored Operational Amplifier Speed and Accuracy Improvement, Kluwer, 2004. He was also a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, J. Webster, Ed., (New York: Wiley, 1999) and Comprehensive Dictionary of Electrical Engineering, P. A. Laplante, Ed., (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1999). Dr. I.M. Filanovsky is the author or co-author of about 250 publications on circuit theory (theory of approximation, theory and technical applications of oscillations, strongly nonlinear oscillations) and applied microelectronics (analog electronic circuits, oscillators and multivibrators, signal-conditioning circuits for sensors). He has 4 patents on electronic circuits.