Design and PVT Analysis of Robust, High Swing Folded Cascode Operational Amplifier

The folded cascode operational amplifier (FCOA) designed in this paper is the single-pole operational amplifier (op amp). In this design, the conventional current mirror is replaced with wide swing current mirror to overcome the essential drawback of cascode configuration. In this paper, negative feedback is used to improve the small-signal gain and to ensure better stability than multistage amplifiers. This paper also aims at improving the output voltage swing, power dissipation and robustness of the op amp. The designed FCOA is proficient in achieving 67.44dB gain and 1.77V output swingat typical voltage for 180nm CMOS technology. The FCOA is highly stable with phase margin of 62.58º while dissipating 0.5mW power. This amplifier is further verified for variability analysis for Process, Voltage and Temperature (PVT) variations to check robustness. All together testing is done at 45 different PVT combinations and results are tabulated accordingly. At each corner temperature and voltage are varied for all together nine combinations to properly address the effect of PVT variations. The results shows that the op amp exhibits desired response at four corners (FF, TT, SS, and FS) of process, over -40º to 125º C temperature range. Also it is capable of operating at very low voltage up to 0.9V adequately showing reduction in power dissipation. Thus the designed op amp is low power, high swing and robust towards process, voltage and temperature variations.