Single miller capacitor frequency compensation techniques: Theoretical comparison and critical review

This paper presents a systematic analytical comparison of the single-Miller capacitor frequency compensation techniques suitable for three-stage complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs). The comparison is carried out with the aid of a figure of merit that expresses a trade-off among gain-bandwidth product, load capacitance, and total transconductance, for equal values of the phase margin. The results found can be used before the transistor-level design step and provide useful guidelines for the optimization of the small-signal performance. Simulations by using a 65-nm standard CMOS technology confirming the effectiveness of the theoretical comparison for 10 different OTA topologies are also provided.