Performance Analysis of Two Novel CMOS Active Grounded and Floating Inductors Suitable for RF Bandpass Filter Applications

Background: In this paper, the grounded and floating active inductors (GI and FI) employing Voltage Differencing Transconductance Amplifier (VDTA) as an active element are realized. Methods: To demonstrate the performance of both the inductors, two subsequent bandpass filter configurations (BPFGI and BPFFI) have been designed and implemented. The filter BPFGI (BPFFI) is designed at a center frequency of 1.318 (1.318) GHz, bandwidth of 27.32 (31.26) MHz, quality factor of 48.24 (42.16) and figure-of-merit of 82.8 (74.3). The presented configurations are spiral inductor-less and are composed of only transistors grounded capacitors and one resistor, thereby validating their suitability for fully integrated circuit applications. The performances of active inductors and bandpass filters are investigated in the presence of parasitics through sensitivity analysis. Results: The high frequency limitations of proposed inductor configurations have also been presented. Furthermore, the impact of process and environmental variations has also been investigated. Conclusion: To support the theoretical analysis, the simulation of the proposed circuit is done using Virtuoso Analog Design Environment of Cadence @ 45-nm CMOS technology node.