Wide-Temperature-Range Integrated Operational Amplifier

A document discusses a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) integrated- circuit operational amplifier to be replicated and incorporated into sensor and actuator systems of Mars-explorer robots. This amplifier is designed to function at a supply potential less than or equal to 5.5 V, at any temperature from -180 to +120 C. The design is implemented on a commercial radiation-hard SOI CMOS process rated for a supply potential of less than or equal to 3.6 V and temperatures from -55 to +110 C. The design incorporates several innovations to achieve this, the main ones being the following: NMOS transistor channel lengths below 1 m are generally not used because research showed that this change could reduce the adverse effect of hot carrier injection on the lifetimes of transistors at low temperatures. To enable the amplifier to withstand the 5.5-V supply potential, a circuit topology including cascade devices, clamping devices, and dynamic voltage biasing was adopted so that no individual transistor would be exposed to more than 3.6 V. To minimize undesired variations in performance over the temperature range, the transistors in the amplifier are biased by circuitry that maintains a constant inversion coefficient over the temperature range.