Compact outside-rail circuit structure by single-cascode two-transistor topology

Abstract

This paper presents a new compact outside-rail circuit structure for future scaled CMOS technology. The proposed circuit is composed of only two transistors connected into a single cascode style for increasing supply voltage to one more nominal supply voltage (VDD ). The circuit is manufactured and measured. Reliability is also verified by the trajectory plot for gate-source voltage and gate-drain voltage of all devices. The results confirm that triple of nominal supply voltage can be used without any overstress in all CMOS devices. The proposed circuit saves 52% area and improves speed for 40% of the conventional approach in the case of 4VDD. An example of outside-rail opamp is also proposed by using the proposed circuit