Impedance Adapting Compensation for Low-Power Multistage Amplifiers

A power-efficient frequency compensation topology, Impedance Adapting Compensation (IAC), is presented in this paper. This IAC topology has, on one hand, a normal Miller capacitor, which is still needed to provide an internal negative feedback loop, and on the other hand, a serial RC impedance as a load to the intermediate stage, improving performance parameters such as stability, gain-bandwidth product and power dissipation. A three-stage IAC amplifier was implemented and fabricated in a 0.35 mu m CMOS technology. Experiment results show that the implemented IAC amplifier, driving a 150 pF load capacitance, achieved a gain-bandwidth product (GBW) of 4.4 MHz while dissipating only 30 mu W power with a 1.5 V supply.