considerations or finite power-supply voltages may also limit
the designer’s ability to decrease .
Flicker noise, or noise, is a major concern for a low-noise
low-frequency circuit. We minimize the effects of flicker noise
by using pMOS transistors as input devices and by using devices
with large gate areas. Flicker noise in pMOS transistors is typically
one to two orders of magnitude lower than flicker noise in
nMOS transistors as long as does not greatly exceed the
threshold voltage [21], [25] and flicker noise is inversely proportional
to gate area. All transistors should be made as large as
possible to minimize noise. However, as devices –
are made larger, and increase, leading once again to a reduced
phase margin. As and are made larger, the OTA
input capacitance increases. The input-referred noise of the
bioamplifier can be related to the OTA input-referred noise by
(5)
where and are the feedback network capacitors shown in
Fig. 1. Since contributes to a capacitive divider that attenuates
the input signal, any increase in increases the input-referred
noise of the overall circuit [26]. An optimum gate area
for and can be found to minimize noise.
Lateral p-n-p transistors can be built in standard CMOS technology
for low-frequency applications, and exhibit lower
noise than MOS transistors [27]. We did not use p-n-p devices
for the input transistors and because the base current
would have to flow through the MOS-bipolar devices. This dc
current would bias the pseudoresistors toward an operating point
with lower incremental resistance and raise the low-frequency
cutoff. The inherently high ratio of bipolar transistors
makes them unsuitable for devices – in our OTA design,
as shown in (4).
C. Noise Efficiency Factor
Since we are interested in minimizing noise within a strict
power budget, we must consider the tradeoff between power
and noise. The noise efficiency factor (NEF) introduced in [7]
quantifies this tradeoff:
NEF (6)
where is the input-referred rms noise voltage, is the
total amplifier supply current, and BW is the amplifier bandwidth
in hertz. An amplifier using a single bipolar transistor
(with no noise) has an NEF of one; all practical circuits
have higher values.