Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Electrical and Computer Engineering

External Link

Selected Works

2012

Differential amplifiers

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Vacuum Microelectronic Integrated Differential Amplifier, S. Hsu, W. Kang, J. Davidson, J. Huang, David Kerns, Jr. Aug 2012

Vacuum Microelectronic Integrated Differential Amplifier, S. Hsu, W. Kang, J. Davidson, J. Huang, David Kerns, Jr.

David V. Kerns

Reported is a novel vacuum field emission transistor (VFET) differential amplifier (diff-amp) utilising nanocrystalline diamond emitters with self-aligned gate partitions. The integrated VFET diff-amp was fabricated by a dual-mask self-aligned mould transfer method in conjunction with chemical vapour deposited nanodiamond. Identical pairs of devices with well-matched field emission transistor characteristics were obtained, realising a negligible common-mode gain, high differential-mode gain, and large common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) of 55 dB. The emission current was validated by a modified Fowler-Nordheim equation in transistor configuration, and the CMRR was modelled by an equivalent half-circuit with the calculated result found to agree well with …


A Folded Floating-Gate Differential Pair For Low-Voltage Applications, Bradley Minch Jul 2012

A Folded Floating-Gate Differential Pair For Low-Voltage Applications, Bradley Minch

Bradley Minch

The author presents a new folded differential pair topology that is suitable for low-voltage applications. The new differential pair is made from floating-gate MOS (FGMOS) transistors and simultaneously provides a rail-to-rail common-mode input voltage range with a high rejection of the common-mode input voltage by keeping the sum of the two output currents fixed. Moreover, when biased in weak or moderate inversion, the allowable output voltage swing is also almost from rail-to-rail. The author discusses the operation of the circuit and some of the trade-offs involved in its design. He also shows experimental measurements from a version of the circuit, …


A Simple Way To Extend The Common-Mode Input-Voltage Range Of The Mos Differential Pair, Bradley Minch Jul 2012

A Simple Way To Extend The Common-Mode Input-Voltage Range Of The Mos Differential Pair, Bradley Minch

Bradley Minch

In this paper, we describe a simple technique involving indirect negative feedback that extends the useable common-mode input-voltage range of the MOS differential pair by a saturation voltage. In this method, we use a replica differential pair to sense when the bias transistor supplying the tail current falls out of saturation. We then set the bias voltage so that the sum of the two differential-pair output currents is equal to the bias current. We present experimental results from a version of the differential pair that was fabricated in a 0.5 μm CMOS process along with a comparison with an identical …