High-Frequency Distortion Analysis of Analog Integrated Circuits

An approach is presented for the analysis of the nonlinear behavior of analog integrated circuits. The approach is based on a variant of the Volterra series approach for frequency domain analysis of weakly nonlinear circuits with one input port, such as amplifiers, and with more than one input port, such as analog mixers and multipliers. By coupling numerical results with symbolic results, both obtained with this method, insight into the nonlinear operation of analog integrated circuits can be gained. For accurate distortion computations, the accuracy of the transistor models is critical. A MOS transistor model is discussed that allows us to explain the measured fourth-order nonlinear behavior of a 1 GHz CMOS upconverter. Further, the method is illustrated with several examples, including the analysis of an operational amplifier up to its gain-bandwidth product. This example has also been verified experimentally.

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