Noise in GM-C Filters
Noise in GM-C Filters
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296 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 45, NO. 3, MARCH 1998
B. Output Noise
The noise due to the transconductor is modeled by a
current source connected at the output of the transconduc-
tor, as shown in Fig. 1(b), with (one-sided) spectral density
where is the Boltzmann constant, is the absolute
(a)
temperature of the circuit, and is the noise factor of the
transconductors [6], which typically has value larger than 1
(e.g., 2 or 3).1 The spectral density of the output noise due to
the transconductors is
(2)
(3)
C. SNR
latter). We denote by the transfer function from to
the input of Let a current source be inserted, for later The SNR is defined as the ratio of the mean squared value
use, at the output of as shown in Fig. 1(b). We denote by of the output signal, to the mean-squared value of the noise:
the transfer function from to the output of the filter.
The transfer functions and are used below, (4)
in the expressions for power dissipation and noise spectral We assume that the noise is independent of the signal.
density, respectively. Therefore, the SNR is maximum when the input signal is
maximum.
A. Power Dissipation The input voltage of transconductors must be limited in
The current from the output of transconductor in order for the filter to operate in the linear region. Let be
Fig. 1(a) is the maximum allowed peak differential voltage at the input of
the transconductors. Usually is some fraction of i.e.,
(5)
where is the phase of In order to deal with
where is a number smaller than 2 (e.g., Then the
the minimum possible power, we assume first that all power
linearity constraint is expressed as
dissipated in the transconductors is due to their output stages,
and that the latter dissipate power only when a signal is present (6)
(class B operation). Fig. 2(a) shows the transconductor and In practice, it is common that a single maximum input ampli-
the supply voltages While the output current is positive, tude is specified, which will guarantee linearity for any input
it is pushed by the voltage source When it becomes frequency. Therefore, the input signal amplitude must satisfy
negative, it is pulled by the voltage source The positive the inequality
and negative parts of denoted by and
(7)
respectively, are shown in Fig. 2(b).
The instantaneous power supplied by is where
The peak value of is and its average
value is the peak value divided by Thus the average power (8)
supplied by to the circuit through transconductor is
The same average power is supplied is the maximum amplification from the input of the filter to
by the voltage source Therefore, in the presence of the inputs of the transconductors.
signal, the total “processing” power, which is dissipated in Another limitation for especially for low-power inte-
the transconductors since capacitors do not dissipate power, is grated filters, is imposed by the requirement that the power
1 This factor is responsible for the fact that Gm-C filters are more noisy
(1) than equivalent MOSFET-C filters with the same total capacitance or power
dissipation [20], [21].
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EFTHIVOULIDIS et al.: NOISE IN GM-C FILTERS 297
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298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 45, NO. 3, MARCH 1998
(22)
When and are specified, the above inequality
gives an upper bound for that cannot be exceeded for
any Gm-C filter design. When and are specified,
(22) gives a lower bound for the power dissipation. When
all quantities in (22) are specified and inequality (22) doesn’t
HP f S f
Fig. 4. Plot of (a) i G ( ) G ( ) for the circuit in Fig. 3 and (b) of the hold, then there is no hope to design a Gm-C filter achieving
RHS of (14), normalized with the maximum value of the latter. the given specifications.
In [27], an upper bound for SNR in active filters, similar
to that in (22), is given. It is noted that the two bounds cannot
Example 1: Consider the second-order Gm-C filter shown
be directly compared to derive conclusions for the whole
in Fig. 3 [31]. The transfer function of this filter is
classes of active and Gm-C filters, since the power dissi-
pation in the result in [27] is the power dissipated only in the
(16) resistors and not the total power dissipation. Moreover, the two
inequalities give bounds for and not actual values for it.
with
F. Special Cases
(17) We consider now filters derived from a low-pass prototype.
We denote by the low-pass prototype transfer function,
Assume that the following design parameters are specified: with a cutoff normalized frequency of 1.
For low-pass filters with bandwidth i.e., with
(18) it is
(19) (23)
and let and the bound on the RHS of (22) is inversely proportional
We select pF, so that the total capacitance of the to
filter is pF. From (17) and (18), it follows that For high-pass filters with cutoff frequency i.e., with
it is
It can be seen that We use the maximum allowed
(24)
value as amplitude of the input signal, i.e., The
functions and can be calculated from (1) and and the bound on the RHS of (22) is inversely proportional
(2). The product is plotted in Fig. 4, together to
with the RHS of (14), normalized with the maximum value For bandpass filters with center frequency and quality
of the latter. factor i.e., with it is [27]
The root-mean-square (rms) value of the output noise can
be calculated from (3) and is found to be mV.
The SNR, given by (4), is dB.
With the values given above, the maximum power dissi-
pation is found to be mW. If the maximum
power dissipation is specified, impedance scaling can be used
(25)
to increase or decrease it.
Equation (15) is used now to derive a bound for and the bound on the RHS of (22) is inversely proportional
From (9) and (15) it follows that to and
(21) (26)
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EFTHIVOULIDIS et al.: NOISE IN GM-C FILTERS 299
and TABLE I
EFFECTS OF PREAMPLIFICATION, PARALLEL
(27) PROCESSING, AND IMPEDANCE SCALING
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300 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 45, NO. 3, MARCH 1998
(37)
Fig. 5. A summing integrator in a state-space Gm-C filter.
Using (31), (34), (35), and the inequality ,
The total capacitance of the filter is
we obtain the following inequality:
(32)
where
(34) (39)
Index in (33) runs over while index in (34) From (37), (39), and (33), it follows that
runs over The output noise mean-squared value,
SNR, and maximum SNR are defined as in (3), (4), and (10),
respectively, where is the maximum value of that
(40)
guarantees linearity. Denoting by the maximum allowed
voltage swings at all internal nodes, the linearity constraint is Integrating both sides of (40) over and using (3), we obtain
expressed by (6), or by (7) with
(35) (41)
Index in (35) runs over and by Multiplying both sides by and using (4), (8), and
convention. we conclude that
We will now prove that transfer functions ,
and satisfy
(36)
(43)
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EFTHIVOULIDIS et al.: NOISE IN GM-C FILTERS 301
illustrate this more clearly, one can use lower bounds for these
integrals, dependent only on the specifications for the transfer
function magnitude, Using these bounds,
specification-dependent bounds for can be derived from
(22) and (42).
Lower bounds for the integral in (22) were derived in [27]
for low-pass and bandpass filters. In a similar manner, it can
be shown that for high-pass filters, with constrained by
if (47a)
if (47b)
we have
Fig. 6. Plot of (a) Ct Hi SG (f ) for the circuit in Fig. 3 and (b) of the RHS
2
of (40), normalized with the maximum value of the latter. (48)
(50)
(52)
(46)
For bandpass filters, with constrained by
in which the RHS has the same functional form as a result
derived for dynamic range elsewhere [20], [22]. if (53a)
Example 3: The two sides of (40), for the circuit in Fig. 3, if (53b)
are plotted in Fig. 6. With the parameters given in Example 1,
the bound on the RHS of (46) is 67.8 dB. we have
Notice that it has not been shown whether the bounds in (42)
and (46) can be achieved or how tight they are. In [19], the
optimum value for in state-space filters with limited total
capacitance is given, with a different definition for (54)
norms are used). That result has a functional form similar to
the right-hand side of (42). The bound in (42) is expressed In previous sections, the dependence of the bounds for
in terms of the transfer function, while the optimum value in on the quality factor was shown. The bounds in this section
[19] is in terms of state-space parameters. Bounds expressed in also show the dependence on the transition region.
terms of magnitude specifications are given in the next section.
VI. CONCLUSION
V. SPECIFICATION-DEPENDENT BOUNDS General, topology-independent bounds for the SNR in Gm-
The bounds for in (22) and (42) are products of two C filters, for the cases of given maximum power dissipation
terms. The first term consists of technological parameters, and of given maximum total capacitance, have been derived.
such as power dissipation, total capacitance, etc., while the It was shown that these can be converted to specification-
second depends only on the transfer function implemented. dependent bounds in several special cases. Although the
This latter term expresses, in some way, how tight the transfer bounds derived do not give the optimum values for SNR,
function is. That is, the integrals in (22) and (42) increase they do show some of the limitations of linear Gm-C fil-
as the requirements become more demanding. In order to ters. The results of preamplification, parallel processing, and
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302 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 45, NO. 3, MARCH 1998
impedance scaling have been examined, and some perfor- [25] P. Shah, “Design of analogue integrated circuits for very low frequency
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