(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 41

Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2010

70MHz CMOS Gm-C 2nd Order Band Pass Filter for

Wireless Systems
Sampath.P1 and Dr.Gunavathi.K2
1
Lecturer, ECE Department, PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore-641004, Tamilnadu, India(corresponding author)
sampath_palaniswami@yahoo.co.in
2
Professor, ECE Department, PSG College of Technology,
Coimbatore-641004, Tamilnadu, India
kgunavathi2000@yahoo.com

Abstract: In this paper the design of CMOS Gm-C 2nd order

band pass filter (BPF) operating at center frequency 70MHz
and bandwidth 3MHz is presented. The band pass filter is
constructed with Folded Cascode Operational
Transconductance Amplifier (OTA) as the basic building
block and is implemented in Cadence Analog Design
Environment using CMOS 0.18µm technology. The simulated
performance shows that the filter provides a Q of 21 and
voltage gain of 3.59dB. The filter can be operated at center
frequency of 70MHz under 1.8V power supply. The filter is
suitable for intermediate frequency (IF) range in most of the
wireless systems operating at 900MHz.
Keywords: OTA, current mirror, BPF and gain.
2. Literature Survey
The Gm-C filter offers many advantages in terms of low-
power and high frequency capability. Gm-C filters can
operate in a wide range of frequencies from several hundred
of KHz to more than 100MHz. Unlike the spiral inductors
used in SAW filters, the Q of Gm-C filters can be adjusted
by controlling the output impedance even at lower
frequencies. Various topologies are available for
constructing 2nd order filters [5] from which a filter structure
that gives linear adjustment of center frequency and
simultaneously Q-adjustment is possible is selected.

1. Introduction 3. Folded Cascode OTA

High performance cellular phones with low cost and small
size have increasing demand in today’s market. The primary
criterion in various cellular phone design approaches
include lowering the complexity, cost, power, and number of
external components. The super-heterodyne receiver
achieves good selectivity and avoids the problem of DC
offset in homodyne (direct-down) receivers and this is
mainly utilized in the wireless receivers for mobile phones.
The rapidly increasing use of wireless devices has
accelerated the need for implementation of high speed, low
cost on-chip IF filters. Realization of on-chip band pass
filters for narrow band selection is challenging task in
wireless receivers. IF band pass filters are needed for the
channel selection and filtering. In super-heterodyne
receivers proper filtering is mandatory and is done by
external surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters. Filtering can
be done by making use of active filters. The Gm-C circuits
represent a popular technique of integrated realization of
high frequency continuous time filters [1]. In this paper a
2nd order Gm-C BPF is designed to operate at center
frequency of 70MHz and bandwidth 3MHz using Folded
Cascode OTA structure.
The literature survey of various filters is discussed in section
2. The working of Folded Cascode OTA and its performance
is discussed in section 3. The construction of 2nd order BPF
with Folded Cascode OTA and its significance is presented
in section 4. The simulation results of the 2nd order BPF
with Folded Cascode OTA is given in section 5 and the
results are discussed. Finally the conclusion is drawn in
section 6.
The operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) is used
as basic building block in many switched capacitor filters.
OTA is basically an op-amp without an output buffer and
can only drive capacitive loads [2], [3]. An OTA is an
amplifier where all nodes are low impedance except the
input and output nodes. A useful feature of OTA is that its
transconductance can be adjusted by the bias current. Filters
made using the OTA can be tuned by changing the bias
current Ibias. Two practical concerns when designing an
OTA for filter applications are the input signal amplitude
and the parasitic input/output capacitances. Large signals
cause the OTA gain to become non-linear. The external
capacitance should be large compared to the input or output
parasitic of the OTA. This limits the maximum frequency of
a filter built with an OTA and causes amplitude or phase
errors. These errors can usually be reduced with proper
selection of Ibias. The performance of simple OTA is limited
by its input and output voltage swing. To overcome these
limits of simple OTA and have an improved performance a
Folded Cascode OTA is used.
The folded Cascode OTA based on Wilson Current mirror is
used [4]. The folded Cascode structure is obtained from
simple OTA by folding down n-channel Cascode active
loads of a differential pair and changing the n-channel
MOSFET to p-channel MOSFET. In the folded Cascode
OTA, the differential stage consisting of PMOS transistors
M9 and M10 are used to charge Wilson mirror. The
transistors M11 and M12 provide the DC bias voltages to M5-
M6-M7-M8 transistors. The structure of Folded Cascode
OTA is shown in the Figure 1.
42 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2010

Figure 3. Transient Response of the Folded Cascode OTA

The transconductance of the Folded Cascode OTA is

calculated using (1) and is 388 µS.
Figure 1. Circuit of the Folded Cascode OTA i
g m = + out − (1)
The sizing of the transistors used is given in table1. v −v

Table 1: Sizing of transistors

Device Parameters
Width of transistors
M1, M2, M3 and M4
Width of transistors
M5, M6, M7, M8,
M11and M12
4. 2nd Order Band Pass Filter (BPF)
Values Second order band pass filters are used in many wireless
systems directly and also higher order filter structures are
25µm designed with second order filters as basic blocks. The
CMOS Folded Cascode BPF designed is a voltage controlled
filter structure with only five components [5]. The 2nd order
2.78µm CMOS Folded Cascode BPF circuit is shown in the Figure
4.

Width of transistors 45 µm
M9 and M10

The length is taken as 0.18 µm for all the transistors. The

Ibias for tuning of the filter is Ibias= I1=45µA and I’bias= I0=40
µA. The value of I1 and I0 are different in order to have a
good impedance matching. The schematic of the Folded
Cascode OTA is shown in the Figure 2.

Figure 4. 2nd order CMOS Folded Cascode BPF circuit

Figure 2. Schematic of the Folded Cascode OTA
The transconductance is calculated from the transient
response of the Folded Cascode OTA shown in Figure 3.
The Folded Cascode OTA-BPF is a tunable structure with
three OTA’s and two capacitorsC1 and C2. The first two
OTA’s are used for tuning the desired center frequency of
the filter operation and the third OTA is used for bandwidth
adjustment. The two capacitors are selected to provide a
desired cutoff frequency and Q. The Folded Cascode OTA-
BPF is characterized by figure of merits like Power
consumption, Gain, Noise, insertion loss, Input and output
matching. The filter is designed to work at a center
frequency of 70MHz, bandwidth of 3MHz and a Q of 23.
The implemented schematic of the Folded Cascode OTA-
BPF is shown in the Figure 5.
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Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2010

(b) S11
nd
Figure 5. Schematic of the 2 order BPF with Folded
Cascode OTA

5. Simulation Results of Folded Cascode OTA-

BPF
The filter provides a gain of 3.594dB and Q of 21.17 at the
center frequency of 69.89MHz and bandwidth of 3.3MHz.
The ac response of the Folded Cascode OTA-BPF is shown
in the Figure 6.

(c) S12

Figure 6. AC response of the Folded Cascode OTA-BPF

The S-parameter analysis is performed to find the S-
parameters and Insertion loss. The S-parameters are shown
in the figure 7. (d) S22
Figure 7. S-Parameters of the Folded Cascode OTA-BPF
The S-parameter simulation of the filter shows that the input
and output impedance matching is good for the designed
filter. From the S- parameters it shows that the designed
Folded Cascode OTA-BPF provides an Insertion loss of
1.975dB.
Also the S-parameter analysis is performed to find the
Power gain and available gain of the circuit and to find the
stability of the circuit. The power gain and transducer gain
of the Folded Cascode OTA-BPF circuit are shown in the
Figure 8.

(a) S21
44 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2010

tones. The Voltage gain is found as a ratio of the IF Output

to the IF input in dB. The Harmonic distortion is
characterized as the ratio of the power of fundamental signal
to the sum of power at the harmonics. The simulation
results of Periodic Steady State (PSS) analysis are shown in
the Figure 10.

Figure 8. GP and GT of the Folded Cascode BPF

(a) 1-dB Compression point for Folded Cascode BPF

Figure 9. Bif (∆) of the Folded Cascode BPF (b) IIP3 for Folded Cascode BPF
Figure 9 shows that the stability factor Bif (∆) is less than 1
and hence the circuit is stable. The values of the S-
parameters obtained for the Folded Cascode BPF are given
in Table 2.

Table 2: S-Parameters obtained for the Folded Cascode BPF

Parameters Values
S21@69.18MHz -1.975dB
S11@69.17MHz -13.17dB
S12@69.18MHz -1.976dB
(c) Voltage Gain of Folded Cascode OTA-BPF
S22@69.18MHz -5.567dB
Power Gain GP 6.676dB

Transducer Gain GT -1.975dB

Stability factor Bif (∆) 0.2179

The periodic steady state response simulation is performed

for the Folded Cascode OTA-BPF to find its 1 dB
compression point, 3rd order Input Intercept Point (IIP3),
Voltage gain and harmonic distortion. IIP3 is measured
using a two-tone test, where the two input tones are the first
order tones. The IIP3 is defined as the cross point of the (d) Harmonic Distortion of Folded Cascode BPF
power for the 1st order tones and the power for the 3rd order
Figure 10. PSS analysis of the Folded Cascode BPF
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 45
Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2010

The parameters obtained from PSS analysis of the Folded 6. Conclusion

Cascode BPF are given in table 3.
This paper presents an efficient method for designing a 2nd
order CMOS Gm-C BPF using folded cascode OTA. The
Table 3: Parameters obtained from PSS analysis for the OTA provides a transconductance of 388 µS. The filter
Folded Cascode BPF provides a gain of 3.594dB and Q of 21.17 for the designed
center frequency and bandwidth. The filter consumes a
Parameters Values power of 657.27µW when operated with 1.8V power supply.
1-dB Compression Point -35.76dBm The filter also provides good impedance matching and very
low noise and hence is more suitable for IF channel
IIP3 -18dBm selection in wireless systems.
Voltage Gain -49.24dB
Harmonic Distortion -73.21dB References
[1] Muhammad S.Qureshi and Phillip E.Allen, “70 MHz
The Pnoise analysis is performed for the Folded Cascode CMOS Gm-C IF Filter”, IEEE J.Solid State Circuits,
OTA-BPF to visualize the contribution of different noise vol. 6, pp. 46-49, May2005.
sources in the total noise. This noise analysis gives the noise [2] David A. Johns and Ken Martin, “Analog integrated
performance of the device which contributes the maximum Circuit Design”, John Wiley &Sons, Inc, New York,
noise. The input and output noise response for the Folded 1997.
Cascode OTA-BPF is shown in the Figure 11. The noise [3] R.Jacob Baker, Harry.W.Li and David.E.Royce,
response shows that the input noise of -136.9dB at 67.61 “CMOS-Circuit Design, Layout and Simulation”,
MHz and the output noise of -163.9dB at 69.24 MHz are IEEE Press, London, 1998.
very low near the center frequency of the filter. [4] Houda Daoud, Samir Ben Salem, Sonia Zouari,
Mourad Loulou, “Folded Cascode OTA Design for
Wide Band Applications”, Design and Test of
Integrated Systems in Nanoscale Technology, 2006.
[5] R. L. Geiger and E. Sánchez-Sinencio, "Active Filter
Design Using Operational Transconductance
Amplifiers: A Tutorial", IEEE Circuits and Devices
Magazine, Vol. 1, pp.20-32, March 1985.

Authors Profile

P.Sampath received the B.E. degree in

Electronics and communication Engineering
form Madras University, Chennai in 1998
(a) Input Noise and M.E. degree in Communication Systems
from Anna University, Chennai in 2005. He
has around 10 years of teaching experience
and is a life member of ISTE, India. He is
now with ECE Department, PSG College of
Technology, Coimbatore.

Dr. K.Gunavathi received the BE degree

in electronics and communication
engineering, the ME degree in computer
science and engineering, and the PhD in
1985, 1989, and 1998, respectively, from
PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore,
Tamil Nadu, India. Her research interests
include low-power VLSI design, design and
(b) Output Noise testing of digital, analog, and mixed signal
VLSI circuits. She is currently working as a professor in the ECE
Figure 11. Pnoise analysis of the Folded Cascode OTA- department of PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil
BPF Nadu, India. She has around 20 years of teaching and research
experience and is a life member of ISTE. She has published in 20
national and international journals and 60 national and
international conference publications.