A Modified Regulated Cascode transimpedance amplifier with extra feed-forward path to enhance gain and bandwidth

This paper presents a Transimpedance Amplifier (TIA) for high sensitivity Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS). The proposed TIA is based on the Regulated Cascode (RGC) structure with an extra transistor employed to implement additional feed-forward path and achieve higher gain values. The extra transistor senses a partially amplified input signal, available in the conventional circuit, and conveys an additional ac current into the load, which provides a higher gain. In addition, a bandwidth extension method is introduced using a capacitor and resistor, which can improve amplifier’s bandwidth by 40%. The proposed TIA is designed in 0.18µm CMOS technology and achieves a transimpedance gain of 101.9dB with a -3dB bandwidth of 91.2 MHz considering 2pF of photodiode capacitance at the TIA input. The input referred noise is 4.4pA/√Hz while dissipating 151µW power.