Analog IC Design in Nanometer CMOS Technologies

In nanometer CMOS technologies, several new effects emerge, such as velocity saturation and gate leakage currents. As a result the transconductance and speed are both limited by velocity saturation. Also noise and mismatch are affected as a result of the thinner gate oxides used. Moreover the supply voltage is reduced to values below 1 Volt, creating new challenges for analog circuit design. This presentation provides a review of the modifications in model parameters, including noise and distortion. It is followed by an exploration of the noise/power compromise in existing circuit blocks such as Miller operational amplifiers and Gm-C filters. An overview is the given of low-voltage amplifiers/filters configurations with both Gate and Bulk drives. Several sub-1 Volt circuits are finally discussed for different applications.