Musings on circuit Q

Abstract

Most second-order continuous-time signal processing circuits, whether voltage-mode, current-mode, or mixed-mode, should be capable of realizing Qs greater than 1/2. However, a number of otherwise interesting circuits have been proposed in the literature which do not have this attribute. In this paper, we show a simple procedure for determining whether Q can be made greater than 1/2 for certain circuits. For other circuits, we develop a more involved procedure for this determination.