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Cory Snooks

EE 435 Lab 5
2/26/2015

Two Stage Amplifier with Miller Compensation


Introduction
A two stage amplifier is made when the output from one amplifier drives the input of another
amplifier. The two stage amplifier shown in Figure 1 consists of a telescopic cascode amplifier
that feeds a common source amplifier. Transistors M3, Ms, and M5 form a current mirror to
provide current to both amplifiers. Transistor M4 is used to create a bias voltage for the M1ca
and M1cb gates. The resistor is used to create a bias voltage for M2ca and M2cb.

Figure 1: A two stage amplifier is shown above. The first stage is a telescopic cascode amplifier that consists of transistors M1a, M1b, M1ca,
M1cb, M2a, M2b, M2ca, and M2cb. The second stage is a common source amplifier that consists of transistor M5. Transistors M3, Ms, M4, and
M5 are used to provide currents and bias voltages to the other transistors.

The transistors in the two stage amplifier were sized to give a DC gain > 90dB, and GBW >
50MHz, and total current < 1mA. The circuit was then simulated in Virtuoso and tested for
stability. The phase margin (PM) was around 250 which means that the two stage amplifier was
not stable. The transistor sizes were adjusted many times to bring the PM back down to a
reasonable number, but nothing worked until Miller Compensation was added (see Figure 3).
The simulation results show that the DC gain was 90.2 dB, the -3dB frequency was 75.5 kHz, the
PM was ~253, the unity gain frequency was 98 MHz, and the GBW was 6.79 MHz.

Figure 2: The loop gain (yellow) and phase (red) are plotted above.

Miller Compensation was applied to the circuit and was swept from 0 to 4 pF to find when the
PM was rise of 45 and 55 degrees. The capacitor values were found to be 2.6 pF and 3.7 pF for
the two PMs respectively. With Cc = 2.6 pF, the DC gain was 90.2 dB, the -3dB frequency was
682 Hz, the PM was 46.33, the unity gain frequency was 18.86 MHz, and the GBW was 1.31
MHz.

Figure 3: The two stage amplifier shown above has Miller compensation which is the capacitor that is connected between V 01 and V0. Miller
Compensation is used to stabilize the circuit and provide a smaller output impedance.

With Cc = 3.7, the DC gain was 90.2 dB, the -3dB frequency was 480 Hz, the PM was 55.17, the
unity gain frequency was 13.94 MHz, and the GBW was 909 kHz.

Figure 4: The PM (top) stabilizes and goes above 55. The loop gain and phase margin look much more reasonable with Miller compensation
(bottom).

Conclusion
The Miller compensation capacitor allowed for a feed forward affect that shifted the amplifier
from unstable to stable, and allowed the amplifier to be used in a closed loop configuration. The
GBW is shown to be inversely proportional to the DC gain.

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