Title
A Folded Voltage-Combiners Biased Amplifier for Low Voltage and High Energy-Efficiency Applications
Abstract
The topic of this brief is a single-stage amplifier biased by a doublet of voltage-combiners in a folded configuration, in order to be supplied by a power source of 1.2 V, maintaining proper dc biasing and avoiding the need of any device stacking. The topology has been automatically designed, optimized, and laid out, from sizing to layout level, using a layout-aware approach provided by the AIDA framework, a state-of-the-art analog IC design optimization framework. Experimental results prove that a gain of approximately 44 dB, together with a figure-of-merit higher than 1300 MHz <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> pF/mW are achievable using the proposed topology, with standard UMC 130 nm technology devices and a 1.2-V supply source. Finally, an extension to supply sources below nominal is explored, showing exciting results toward a future of high energy-efficiency amplifiers.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1109/TCSII.2019.2913083
IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs
Keywords
Field
DocType
Topology,Optimization,Gain,Layout,Energy efficiency,Electrostatic discharges,Integrated circuit modeling
Voltage,Electronic engineering,Integrated circuit design,Sizing,Low voltage,High energy,Mathematics,Stacking,Biasing,Amplifier
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
67
2
1549-7747
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
2
0.41
0
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ricardo Povoa15310.57
Nuno C. Lourenço212218.24
Ricardo Martins317920.81
António Canelas47211.20
Nuno Cavaco Horta531049.65
João Goes68827.95