sensors

Letter
0.5 V Fifth-Order Butterworth Low-Pass Filter Using
Multiple-Input OTA for ECG Applications
Montree Kumngern 1 , Nattharinee Aupithak 1 , Fabian Khateb 2,3, * and Tomasz Kulej 4
1 Department of Telecommunications Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of
Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok 10520, Thailand; [email protected] (M.K.);
[email protected] (N.A.)
2 Department of Microelectronics, Brno University of Technology, Technicka 3058/10,
612 00 Brno, Czech Republic
3 Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, nám. Sítná 3105,
272 01 Kladno, Czech Republic
4 Department of Electrical Engineering, Czestochowa University of Technology,
42-201 Czestochowa, Poland; [email protected]
* Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +420-54114-6128




Received: 15 November 2020; Accepted: 14 December 2020; Published: 21 December 2020


Abstract: This paper presents a 0.5 V fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filter based on multiple-input
operational transconductance amplifiers (OTA). The filter is designed for electrocardiogram (ECG)
acquisition systems and operates in the subthreshold region with nano-watt power consumption.
The used multiple-input technique simplifies the overall structure of the OTA and reduces the number
of active elements needed to realize the filter. The filter was designed and simulated in the Cadence
environment using a 0.18 µm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) process from
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Simulation results show that the filter has
a bandwidth of 250 Hz, a power consumption of 34.65 nW, a dynamic range of 63.24 dB, attaining a
figure-of-merit of 0.0191 pJ. The corner (process, voltage, temperature: PVT) and Monte Carlo (MC)
analyses are included to prove the robustness of the filter.

Keywords: fifth-order low-pass filter; operational transconductance amplifier; multiple-input

bulk-driven technique; subthreshold region; nanopower

1. Introduction
Continuous-time filters are widely used in biomedical systems devoted to applications in
electroencephalographic (EEG), electromyographic (EMG), and electrocardiographic (ECG) systems.
The biological signals processed in these systems typically occupy the frequency range of 0.05–250 Hz,
with an amplitude of 15 µV–5 mV [1]. In more detail, the frequency/amplitude ranges for EEG, EMG,
and ECG signals are 0.05–60 Hz/15−100 µV, 10−200 Hz/0.1−5 mV, and 0.05−250 Hz/100 µV−5 mV,
respectively. Figure 1 shows a typical data acquisition system for ECG signal processing.
The pre-amplifier stage amplifies a low-amplitude ECG signal, then the low-pass filter selects the
frequency range and eliminates out-of-band noise. The filtered analog signal is converted into digital
form by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and then it is further processed by a digital signal
processing (DSP) block. This work focused on the design of a low-pass filter with the cutoff frequency
of 250 Hz. The analog low-pass filters for ECG acquisition systems should be designed to meet specific
requirements, such as high dynamic range, low-power consumption, and small chip area. There are
many low-pass filters for ECG acquisition systems described in the literature [2–10]. The Butterworth
approximation is usually used because it provides a better linear phase and flat response within each

Sensors 2020, 20, 7343; doi:10.3390/s20247343 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors

Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 2 of 16

bandwidth. Considering the analog filters in [2–10], one can distinguish two main techniques that
have been used to realize the low-pass Butterworth filters: the cascade approach [2–6] and the ladder
simulation approach [7–10]. The cascade structure can be obtained by cascading several biquad filters,
which leads to a simple and easy-to-tune realization.

Figure 1. Electrocardiogram acquisition system.

The present work focused on the second approach, i.e., the ladder simulation of a prototype filter.
In particular, we designed a fifth-order low-pass Butterworth filter based on the RLC prototype shown
in Figure 2. As it is widely known, the high-order filters based on the RLC prototypes have lower
pass-band sensitivity to the variation of passive elements, compared with that of the cascade approach.

Figure 2. Prototype of a fifth-order low-pass filter.

The fifth-order low-pass Butterworth filters derived from the LC ladder-type filter were
reported in [7–10]. The fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filter using fully differential operational
transconductance amplifiers (FD-OTAs) is shown in Figure 3a [7]. The floating inductors L2 and
L4 are simulated using OTA-based gyrators. The resistors RS and RL are simulated using OTAs as
well. It should be noted that the filter in [7] employs eleven FD-OTAs and consumes 453 nW of
power. The number of active devices that are used to realize this fifth-order Butterworth filter can be
reduced by using multiple-output fully differential OTA (MOFD-OTA) as shown in Figure 3b [8,9],
or fully differential-difference transconductance (FDDA) (a multiple-input active device) as shown in
Figure 3c [10]. The structures in [8,9] employ six MOFD-OTA while the structure in [10] employs five
FDDAs and one OTA. The filter in [8] consumes 350 nW of power and offers a 49.9 dB dynamic range
while the filter in [9] consumes 41 nW of power and offers a 61.2 dB dynamic range. The filter in [10]
consumes 453 nW of power and offers a 50 dB dynamic range.
This paper proposes a fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filter based on multiple-input operational
transconductance amplifiers. It is clearly shown that the number of active devices needed to
realize the fifth-order low-pass filter can be reduced by using the multiple-input OTA and results in
reducing the power consumption and the active chip area. A novel technique with a multiple-input
gate-driven (MIGD) transistor is used to realize multiple-input OTA with an internal CMOS structure
as simple as a conventional OTA, hence, no additional current branches or cascade connections
of multiple OTAs is needed. Unlike the floating-gate technique, the multiple-input technique
does not require any additional processing steps to eliminate the trapped charge effect on the
isolated gate nor any auxiliary circuit. Another advantage is that the multiple-input gate-driven P-
orN-MOS transistors can be realized with any CMOS process. It is worth noting that the results
presented in this work are based on pre-layout simulation and this work does not include the
physical realization of the filter, nor the experimental testing in the context of ECG applications.
However, the principle of multiple-input transistors, as multiple-input bulk-driven and multiple-input
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 3 of 16

bulk-driven quasi-floating-gates, have been confirmed experimentally by Khateb et al. in previous

works [11–13]. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 shows the principle of multiple-input
gate-driven OTA and the filter design based on it, Section 3 the simulation results, and finally Section 4
the conclusion.

Figure 3. Fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filters, (a) FD-OTA-C filter [7], (b) MOFD-OTA-C filter [8,9],
(c) FDDA-based filter [10].

2. Fifth-Order Butterworth Low Pass Filter

2.1. Multiple-Input Gate-Driven OTA

The active filter proposed in this work exploits multiple-input OTAs, which allows for simplifying
its overall structure [14]. The multiple-input OTA is realized using a concept of a multiple-input
MOS transistor. The symbol and CMOS realization of this element are shown in Figure 4a,b,
respectively. As it is seen in Figure 4b, the multiple-input MOS can be seen as a connection of an
“internal” MOS transistor and a voltage divider/analog summing circuit, composed of capacitances
CGi (i = 1 . . . N). The capacitors CGi are shunted by the large resistances RLi , which ensures proper
biasing of the gate terminal of the internal MOS for DC. The large resistances can be realized using an
anti-parallel connection of two minimum-size MOS transistors operating in a cutoff region, as shown
in Figure 4b. The small-signal equivalent circuit of the resulting multiple-input MOS is shown in
Figure 4c. Assuming 1/ωCGi  RLi , the gate potential VG is given by

N
X C Gi
VG = Vini (1)
CP
i=1
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 4 of 16

where CΣ is the sum of the capacitances CGi and the input capacitance of an internal MOS seen from its
gate terminal Cin :
XN
CP = Cin + CGi (2)
i=1

Figure 4. MIGD MOS transistor, (a) symbol, (b) realization, (c) small-signal model.

Since the AC signal at the gate of the internal MOS transistor is attenuated by the capacitive
divider, the transconductance of the multiple-input device seen from its i-th input, and operating in
the subthreshold region, can be expressed as:

ID CGi
gmi = · (3)
np UT CP

where ID is the DC drain current, np . is the subthreshold slope, and UT . is the thermal potential. As it
is seen from (3), the transconductance seen from the i-th input is equal to the transconductance of the
internal MOS, multiplied by the voltage gain of the capacitive voltage divider.
The lower input transconductance gmi entails a lower intrinsic voltage gain of the multiple-input
MOS, as well as an increased input-referred noise. Both parameters are degraded by the factor of
CΣ /CGi . However, it is worth noting that the linear range for such a device is also increased by the
factor of CΣ /CGi , therefore, its dynamic range (DR) remains the same as that of the internal MOS.
The multiple-input MOS transistors were used to design a multiple-input OTA. The symbol and
CMOS realization of the circuit are shown in Figures 5 and 6, respectively. The multiple-input MOS
transistors M1 and M2 were used to create a multiple-input differential pair, biased by the self-cascode
current sources M7,7c and M8,8c . The drain currents of the input differential pair are transferred to the
outputs (Io+ and Io- ) through the current mirrors composed of the self-cascode transistors M3/3c -M4/4c
and M5,5c -M6,6c . The current mirrors are loaded with the self-cascode current sources M10,10c and M9,9c .
Note that the tail node that supplies the differential pair in Figure 6 is drawn with two branches for
esthetic reasons. The application of self-cascode connections in this design allows for an increase in the
output resistance of the OTA, which entails increasing the DC voltage gain of this circuit. The transistors
M9c -M11c form a simple common-mode feedback circuit (CMFB) circuit, which forces the output
common-mode level to be equal to the reference potential VCM . All the transistors operate in a
subthreshold triode region. If the common-mode level is increasing/decreasing, the channel resistances
of M10C1,c2 are increasing/decreasing as well, thus lowering the currents flowing through M10 and M9 ,
and consequently, decreasing/increasing the common-mode level to the desired value. The transistors
M9c and M10c are divided into two devices, which makes the circuit insensitive to the output differential
signals of the OTA, at least for small amplitudes of the signal. For larger amplitudes of the output
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 5 of 16

signals, one can observe nonlinear components of the drain currents ID9 and ID10 , caused by the
differential output voltage of the OTA. However, this nonlinear effect is not apparent at the differential
output of OTA, since variation of ID9 and ID10 are identical. This effect, however, causes variation of
the output common-mode level. Figure 7 illustrates the large signal transfer characteristics and the
common-mode level variation for unloaded OTA in Figure 6 controlled with differential signals. Note,
moderate nonlinear effects are caused by the nonlinear output conductance of the OTA rather than that
of the CMFB. Variations of the common-mode output voltage are maintained at an acceptable level.

Figure 5. Symbol of a multiple-input operational transconductance amplifier (OTA).

Figure 6. CMOS implementation for an MIGD OTA.

Figure 7. Output differential voltage and common-mode level versus input differential voltage for
unloaded OTA in Figure 6.

One can say that the applied CMFB has a simple structure and does not consume additional
power from supply rails. On the other hand, it slightly limits the maximum output voltage swing due
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 6 of 16

to nonzero voltage drops across transistors M9c –M11c and variations of the output common-mode level
caused by differential signals. However, the negative effects can be maintained at an acceptable level.
Assuming 1/ωCGi  RLi , the differential output current of the OTA can be expressed as:
N 
X V+ini − V−ini CGi 
Io+ − Io− = IB tanh · P  (4)
np UT C
i=1

where IB is the biasing current (it was assumed that ID7 = ID8 = ID11 ). From (4), the small-signal
transconductance from i-th input is given by:

ID CGi
gmi = · (5)
np UT CP

The DC voltage gain of the OTA from the i-th input can be expressed as:

Avd = gmi rout (6)

where rout is the output resistance of the OTA, given by:

 
rout  gm4,6 rds4,6 rds4c,6c gm9,10 rds9,10 rds9,10c /2 (7)

Thanks to the self cascode connections, the voltage gain of the OTA can be at an acceptable level,
despite the lower transconductance of the input differential pair.
From (4), the third order harmonic distortion of the OTA for a sinusoidal signal applied to one
pair of input terminals, while the other pairs are shorted to ground the AC signals, can be expressed as:
!2
1 V+i − V−i CGi
HD3 = · P (8)
48 np UT C

Thus, as it is seen from (8), the input linear range is increased by the factor of CΣ /CGi ,
i.e., the voltage attenuation factor introduced by the input capacitive divider.
The input referred noise of the OTA, including both thermal and flicker noise components, can be
expressed as:
P !2 
UT 2 C
  
2
vntı = 2 ı21,2 + 2ı23−6 + 2ı29,10 (9)
IB CGi
where:  I 2
B
KFp UT
ı21,2 = 2qIB + (10)
f COX (WL)1,2
 I 2
( gm3−6 rds3−6c )2 KFn UBT
!
2 gds3−6c 1
ı23−6 = 4kTgds3−6c 1+ + · (11)
3 gm3−6 (1 + gm3−6 rds3−6c )2
h i
4 f COX WL)3−6e f f
 I 2
( gm9−10 rds9−10c )2 KFp UBT
!
2 gds9−10c 1
ı210−14 = 4kTgds9−10c 1+ + · (12)
3 gm9−10 (1 + gm9−10 rds9−10c )2
h i
4 f COX WL)9,10e f f

where gds9−10c = gds9−10c1 //gds9−10c1 , WLieff = (WLi ·WLic )/(WLi + WLic ), i = 3 . . . 10, WL9,10c =
WL9,10c1 + WL9-10c2 , KFn and KFp are the flicker noise constants for n- and p-channel transistors,
respectively, and COX is the oxide capacitance per unit area.
As it is easy to note from (9), the input referred noise is increased by the factor of CΣ /CGi ,
as compared with the input noise of a single-input OTA biased with the same current. However,
if the multiple input OTA is realized with N identical OTAs, each biased with the current of IB /N,
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 7 of 16

then the input transconductance from each input and the input referred noise would be the same as
that for the proposed realization (see the Appendix A). Since the linear range in the proposed design is
increased CΣ /CGi times, then the DR of the proposed solution is also increased in the same proportion.
The improved DR can be considered as the most important advantage of the proposed approach.
Note that a similar capacitive attenuation approach that increase the dynamic range of OTAs has been
presented before [15].

2.2. Proposed Filter

The proposed fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filter is shown in Figure 8a. It was developed
from the LC-ladder filter based on the OTA-C topology. Its signal flow graph is shown in Figure 8b,
where τ1 = C1 /gm1 , τ2 = C2 /gm2 , τ3 = C3 /gm3 , τ4 = C4 /gm4 , and τ5 = C5 /gm5 . The filter comprises
five MIGD OTAs and five capacitors. The number of active devices is reduced from 6 to 5, as compared
with [8–10], which allows for the reduction of the active area and power.

Figure 8. (a) Proposed fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filter, (b) signal flow graph.

Considering OTA0 , OTA1 in Figure 3b and OTA0 , FDDA1 in Figure 3c, it can be noted that these
devices are used to realize a floating resistor [9]. In this work these components together with the
capacitor C1 create a lossy integrator as shown in Figure 9a [8], Figure 9b [10]. The ideal transfer
function of these circuits can be expressed as:

Vop1 − Von1 gmo /gm1

= (13)
Vip − Vin (sC1 /gm1 ) + 1

It is evident that the circuits work as lossy integrators, where the voltage gain can be controlled
by gmo . Usually, all transconductances are set to be equal for easy tuning. Figure 9c shows the lossy
integrator based on the three-input OTA that is proposed in this paper. The ideal transfer function of
the circuit in Figure 9c can be expressed as:

Vop1 − Von1 1
= (14)
Vip − Vin (sC1 /gm1 ) + 1

Thus, the circuit works as a lossy integrator with unity gain. Assuming that gmo = gm1 ,
Equations (13) and (14) will be identical. Thus, it can be concluded that the OTA0 in Figure 3b,c can be
removed by using multiple-input OTA. This application can only be realized using multiple-input OTA
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 8 of 16

and it is not possible by using conventional OTA. It should be noted that only the parts mentioned
above in Figure 9a of [8], Figure 9b of [10] are modified, the other parts (OTA2-5 or FDDA2-5 ) are not
changed and the feedback connection is still similar to the filters in [8,10].

Figure 9. Lossy integrator, (a) circuit in [8], (b) circuit in [10], (c) proposed circuit.

3. Results and Discussion

The circuit was designed in the Cadence environment using a TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS process with
a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor. The OTA with bias current IB = 3.3 nA consumes 8.25 nW
under a 0.5 V supply voltage. The isolation between OTA inputs is assured by the large value resistance
of the MOS transistor operating in a cutoff region. The input currents are well below 100 pA for input
range rail-to rail.
The RLC filter in Figure 2 was designed for the cut-off frequency of 250 Hz. The prototype element
values were chosen as follows: RS = RL = 1 Ω, C1 = C5 = 393.4 µF, C3 = 1.27 mF, and L2 = L4 = 1.03 mH.
For the OTA-C filter C1 = C5 = 5.43 pF, C2 = C4 = 14.2 pF, C3 = 17.57 pF, and the bias current for each
OTA was IB = 3.3 nA. Note that the bias current circuit serves to bias all OTAs hence the maximum
power consumption of the filter is 34.65 nW. Figure 10 shows the frequency responses of the RLC
and the proposed filter. The gain magnitude at low frequency was −6 dB and −6.4 dB and the cut-off
frequency (fc ) was 250.2 Hz and 250.4 for the RLC and OTA filters, respectively. Both curves are in
good agreement up to −70 dB. Figure 11 shows the frequency response of the filter with different bias
currents ranging from 0.1 nA to 3.3 nA while the fc was in the range of 17.11 Hz to 250.4 Hz. The tuning
capability and the linear relation between fc and IB are demonstrated in Figure 12. The transient
response of the filter for the input sine wave of Vinpp = 100 mV and 10-Hz frequency are illustrated in
in Figure 13. The total harmonic distortion (THD) was 1%.
To check the influence of the process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations on the filter
performance, the corner analysis was performed. The MOS transistor corners (ss, sf, fs, ff), MIM capacitor
corners (ss, ff), voltage supply corners (490 mV, 510 mV), and temperature corners (0 ◦ C, 60 ◦ C) were used.
The variation of the gain was in the range of −7.2 dB to −6.13 dB while the variation of the cut-off
frequency was in the range of 100.6 Hz to 326.7 Hz, as shown in Figure 14. Note that the temperature
corner has the most effect of the variation of the frequency response since the circuit operates in a
subthreshold region. However, since the circuit is proposed for biomedical applications it is expected
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 9 of 16

that the temperature variation will be less than the chosen temperature corners. Although the variation
of the cut-off frequency is large, the needed value can be simply re-adjusted by the bias current.
Note that the amplitudes of the bumps at low bias currents in Figure 11 and at higher frequencies in
Figure 14 do not exceed 1.6 dB and do not affect stability of the circuit in a significant manner.
The Monte Carlo analysis with 200 runs was performed for the filter gain and cut-off frequency as
shown in Figures 15 and 16, respectively. The mean value of the gain was −6.23 dB with standard
deviation of 0.14 dB, while the mean value of the cut-off frequency was 251.7 Hz with standard deviation
of 4.9 Hz. Figure 17 shows the output referred noise density of the filter. The integrated in-band
noise between 0.1 Hz to 250 Hz shows that the output referred noise is 77 µVrms . Figure 18 shows the
performance of the proposed filter in processing the ECG signal where (a) depicts the ECG signal with
a distortion signal (5 mV/500 Hz) that was applied at the input of the filter and (b) depicts the filtered
output signal.

Figure 10. The frequency response of the RLC and the proposed filter.

Figure 11. The frequency response of the proposed filter with different bias currents.
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 10 of 16

Figure 12. The cut-off frequency versus the bias current.

Figure 13. The transient response of the filter for input sine wave with Vinpp = 100 mV and 10 Hz.

Figure 14. The frequency response of the proposed filter under process, voltage and temperature
(PVT) corners.
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 11 of 16

Figure 15. Monte Carlo simulation of the voltage gain.

Figure 16. Monte Carlo simulation of the cut-off frequency.

Figure 17. The output referred noise density of the proposed filter.
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 12 of 16

Figure 18. Transient response of the filter for ECG signal: (a) input; (b) output.

The summary and comparison between the proposed filter and some previous works are shown
in Table 1. Only the fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filters simulated by the LC-ladder type filter and
suitable for ECG signal acquisition [7–10] have been selected for comparison. From Table 1, it is clear that
the proposed filter has a lower number of active devices, power consumption, and figure-of-merit (FOM).
Finally, the FOM versus VDD of fifth-order low-pass filters are shown in Figure 19. Compared with
the works in [7,8,10], the proposed filter offers clearly better FOM. The FOM is even slightly lower
than the one in [9] with half the value of VDD . It is worth noting that the estimated chip area of
2-inputs and 3-inputs OTA based on the MIGD technique is increased by approximately 5% and 8%,
respectively, compared to that of a single-input conventional OTA with the same transistor dimensions.
This confirms the advantage of this technique of saving chip area. Note, a similar conclusion of this
advantage based on experimental results is stated in [11]. The small chip area of the proposed filter is
evident in Table 1 compared with that of [10] that used off-chip capacitors for filter realization.
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 13 of 16

Table 1. Performance comparison between the proposed filter and other fifth-order low-pass filters for
ECG signal acquisition.

MEJ IEEE TBioCAS IEEE TCAS-II IEEE TBioCAS

Symbol This Work
(2019) [10] (2019) [9] (2018) [8] (2009) [7]
VDD [V] 0.5 0.25 1 1 1
Tech [um] 0.18 0.13 0.18 0.18 0.18
VTH [V] 0.5 0.44 0.5 0.5 0.5
Order (N) 5 5 5 5 5
No. of active device 5 MIGD-OTAs 6 FDDTAs 6 OTAs 6 OTAs 11 OTAs
Structure Gm -C fully-diff. Gm -C fully-diff. Gm -C fully-diff. Gm -C fully-diff. Gm -C fully-diff.
BW [Hz] 250 100 250 250 250
IRN [µVrms ] 167 4.7 134 100 300
DR [dB] 63.24 57.00 61.2 49.9 50
Power (P) [nW] 34.65 603 41 350 453
FOM = P/(N * BW * DR) [pJ] 0.0191 1.7 0.0286 0.896 1.15
LV capability = VTH /VDD * 100 [%] 100 176 50 50 50
0.08 (estim.) 0.67
Area [mm2 ] 0.24 0.12 0.13
(off-chip cap.) (off-chip cap.)
Obtained results Simulation Measured Measured Measured Measured

Figure 19. Figure-of-merit (FOM) against VDD of the fifth-order low-pass filters.

4. Conclusions
In this paper, a fifth-order Butterworth low-pass filter using multiple-input OTA was proposed.
The design proves that the number of OTAs for realizing the fifth-order low-pass filter architecture can
be reduced using multiple-input OTAs. This entails the reduction of both the power consumption
and the active area. Comparison with other designs in the literature shows that the proposed
structure is the most beneficial, regarding the number of active devices and power consumption.
The proposed filter was simulated with a 0.18 µm CMOS process and supplied with 0.5 V, which entailed
operation in a subthreshold region. Simulation results including PVT corner and Monte Carlo (MC)
analyses confirmed the robustness of the design.

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, F.K. and M.K.; methodology, M.K. and T.K.; software, F.K.; validation,
F.K., N.A., and M.K.; formal analysis, M.K. and T.K.; investigation, F.K., M.K., and T.K.; writing—original draft
preparation, M.K. and F.K.; writing—review and editing, M.K., F.K., and T.K. All authors have read and agreed to
the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This work was supported by King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang under grant
KREF026201. For the research, the infrastructure of the SIX Center was used.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 14 of 16

Appendix A
Let us compare noise properties of a fully-differential OTA in Figure A1a, biased with current
IB , and a multiple-input OTA composed of n identical OTAs of the same structure, but biased with
currents of IB /n (Figure A1b). For simplicity, let us consider only the thermal noise.
The mean-square value of the output noise current of the OTA in Figure A1a, operating in a
weak-inversion region can be expressed as:

ı2n = 2qIB A (A1)

where q is the electron charge and A is a constant depending on the particular structure of the OTA.
Consequently, the input referred noise is given by:

2qIB A
v2n = (A2)
g2m

The output noise current of each OTA in Figure A1b is:

IB
ı2n = 2q A (A3)
N
However, the total output noise current, equal to the sum of N output currents, is the same as that
for the reference OTA in Figure A1a. If the total output noise is referred to one input, we obtain:

ı2 2qIB A 2
v2nı =  n 2 = N (A4)
gm g2m
N

Thus, the rms value of the input noise is given by:

q s
2qIB A
v2nı = N (A5)
g2m

If a noiseless passive voltage divider, with N inputs, and a voltage gain of 1/N from each input is
added at the input of the OTA in Figure A1a, then the rms value of the i-th input referred noise voltage
is given by the same equation, namely, the i-th input-referred noise is the same as that for the OTA in
Figure A1b.

Figure A1. Single-input fully-differential OTA (a) and multiple-input fully-differential OTA (b).
Sensors 2020, 20, 7343 15 of 16

If we define the dynamic range as the ratio of the maximum input rms voltage, limited by an
assumed level of nonlinear distortion (Vinmax ) to the i-th input referred noise, then for the multiple-input
OTA in Figure A1b we have:
Vinmax
DRmi = q (A6)
2
vnı
Since in the subthreshold region the linear range of a differential pair does not depend on the
biasing current, then for the OTA in Figure A1a, with an additional passive voltage divider, the linear
range will be extended N times, and the DR will be:

Vinmax
DRpd = N· q = N·DRmi (A7)
2
vnı

Hence, the dynamic range of the OTA with a passive, noiseless voltage divider at the input is N
times as large as that for the OTA composed of N identical OTAs, biased with N-times lower current.
Similar proof could be concluded for flicker noise, however, in such a case not only the total biasing
current, but also the total areas of transistor channels should be equal for the two compared circuits,
i.e., the transistor channel areas of each OTA in Figure A1b should be N times smaller than for that of
the OTA in Figure A1a.

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