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Issccedu 2018: Chopping Demystified: Kofi Makinwa Delft University of Technology The Netherlands

Chopping is a technique that uses a polarity-reversing switch to modulate input signals and remove offset, drift, and 1/f noise. It works by modulating these low-frequency noise sources to higher frequencies that can be filtered out. However, it introduces issues like switching spikes, chopper ripple, and reduced bandwidth due to filtering. Careful design is needed to minimize residual offset from non-ideal clock signals and input spikes. Chopping can provide very low offset below 100nV but requires multi-path amplifier designs to maintain bandwidth as filtering is used.

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201 views

Issccedu 2018: Chopping Demystified: Kofi Makinwa Delft University of Technology The Netherlands

Chopping is a technique that uses a polarity-reversing switch to modulate input signals and remove offset, drift, and 1/f noise. It works by modulating these low-frequency noise sources to higher frequencies that can be filtered out. However, it introduces issues like switching spikes, chopper ripple, and reduced bandwidth due to filtering. Careful design is needed to minimize residual offset from non-ideal clock signals and input spikes. Chopping can provide very low offset below 100nV but requires multi-path amplifier designs to maintain bandwidth as filtering is used.

Uploaded by

Luật Trần
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ISSCCedu 2018:

Chopping Demystified

Kofi Makinwa
Delft University of Technology
The Netherlands
Chopping: You’ve Heard About It

Good
 Magically reduces offset, 1/f noise, drift …

Bad
 But creates switching spikes, chopper ripple and other artifacts …

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Choppers

 A chopper is a polarity reversing switch


 That can multiply an input signal by exactly +1 or -1
 CMOS ⇒ near-ideal square-wave modulator

Kofi Makinwa: Chopping Demystified 3 of 14


A Chopper Amplifier

 DC input signal Vin is modulated twice ⇒ amplified output remains at DC


 Offset Vos ⇒ square-wave ripple at the chopping frequency fch
 And can be removed by a low-pass filter (LPF)

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Insights

 Non-50% duty-cycle ⇒ residual offset Vos,res


 ⇒ generate chopper clock with an on-chip flip-flop
 For Vos = 1mV, fch = 50kHz, 1ns clock skew ⇒ Vos,res = 100nV

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Insights

 LPF ⇒ fundamental loss of bandwidth


 Non-ideal LPF ⇒ residual ripple

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Insights

ADC
 Ron of input choppers ⇒ extra noise
 Effective amplifier gain Aeff ≤ ADC Aeff

fch
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Chopping in the Frequency Domain

 Offset and 1/f noise


are modulated to
harmonics of fch

 1/f noise can be


completely removed

 Provided that
fch > 1/f corner freq.

Kofi Makinwa: Chopping Demystified 8 of 14


Residual Offset

 Mismatched charge injection and clock coupling ⇒ input spikes


 These will be rectified by the output chopper ⇒ residual offset
 Also: input spikes ⇒ input current!

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Insights

 Residual offset (current) ∝ fch


 So make fch as low as possible (but >1/f corner frequency)

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Insights

 Residual offset (current) ∝ spike amplitude


 So use small switches (subject to noise) & symmetrical layout of clock lines

 Result: residual offsets of 1-10µV, input currents of 10-100pA

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Input Impedance

+1 Phase -1 Phase

Cin Cin

Vin Vin

 Vin will charge and discharge the amplifier’s input capacitance Cin
 ⇒ switched-cap impedance Zin = 1/4fchCin
 Cin = 100fF and fch = 50kHz ⇒ Zin = 50MΩ

 Zin and input spikes ⇒ current noise [J. Xu et al, JSSC ‘13]

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Chopped Transconductor

 Fully differential ⇒ matched


spikes ⇒ low offset
 Current-mode output choppers
⇒ wide BW ⇒ high Aeff
 Output choppers near rails
⇒ easy to drive
 Extra NMOS chopper ⇒ chops
offset & 1/f noise of NMOS
current sources

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Summary

Pros
 Drift and 1/f noise can be totally removed
[Enz & Temes, Proc. IEEE, ‘96]
 Very low offset can be achieved < 100nV
[A. Bakker, JSSC ‘00][R. Wu, JSSC ’12]

Cons
 LPF limits BW: Wide BW ⇒ Multi-path amplifiers
[R. Burt, JSSC ‘06] [Q. Fan, JSSC ‘08]
 Chopper ripple ⇒ some extra filtering/complexity
[A. Tang, ISSCC ‘02] ][R. Wu, JSSC ’09][G. Ge, JSSC ’11][Chandrakumar, JSSC ‘17]

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