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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 56, NO.

1, JANUARY 2009 97

Full Model and Characterization of Noise in


Operational Amplifier
Gino Giusi, Felice Crupi, Calogero Pace, and Paolo Magnone

Abstract—In this paper, we propose a method to fully charac-


terize noise in operational amplifiers (op-amps). The method al-
lows the extraction not only of the spectra of the equivalent input
current noise (EICN) and equivalent input voltage noise generators
but also of their cross-correlation coefficients, which are routinely
discarded in noise analysis of op-amps. The method is applied to
extract all noise parameters of the low-noise bipolar-input op-amp 0
Fig. 1. E I model for a linear two-port network. E is a voltage noise
OP27 and is validated through noise measurements in a test circuit. generator, while I is a current noise generator. Generally, they are correlated.
A key finding is that neglecting the cross-correlation coefficient be-
tween the two EICN generators can lead to severe errors in noise
analysis. characterization is obtained with a three-step procedure. Our
Index Terms—Cross correlation, noise measurements, noise key finding is that the usually neglected and seldom measured
model, operational amplifiers (op-amps). correlation coefficient between the two EICNs can play a role
in noise behavior of op-amp-based circuits.
The remainder of this work is organized as follows. In
I. INTRODUCTION
Section II, the basic theoretical background of the op-amp

A CCURATE modeling of operational amplifier (op-amp)


noise is fundamental, since op-amps are vastly used as
building blocks to implement low-noise amplifiers in discrete
noise model is discussed. In Section III, we illustrate the
proposed procedure for the complete op-amp noise charac-
terization. In Section IV, we report the experimental results
and integrated circuits [1]–[8]. Noise in op-amps is routinely obtained by applying the proposed method to the low-noise
modeled by two equivalent input current noise (EICN) genera- bipolar-input op-amp OP27. Experimental results obtained on
tors and one equivalent input voltage noise (EIVN) generator. a test circuit validating the proposed method are reported in
The three noise sources are usually assumed uncorrelated to each Section V. Finally, in Section VI, we present our conclusions.
other. Moreover, the two EICNs are usually assumed equal due to
the symmetry of the input differential amplifier. Based on these II. OP-AMP NOISE MODEL
assumptions, the op-amp noise modeling requires the knowledge First studies on noise modeling of a general linear two-port
of only two noise quantities, the EIVN and the EICN, which are network were reported by Rothe and Dahlike and Haus in [10]
usually reported in the op-amp data sheets. This popular model is and [11], respectively. In their model (Fig. 1), the noise
an incomplete representation of the op-amp noise, and it can lead coming from a general linear two-port network is modeled by
to severe errors in noise analysis. A complete noise model re- two noise generators and located at the input port.
quires also the knowledge of the correlation coefficients between is a voltage noise generator, while is a current noise gener-
each couple of noise sources. The noise sources are, in general, ator which are generally correlated through a correlation coeffi-
correlated simply because they may include the contribution of cient. Modeling of a more general -port linear network requires
the same noise physical mechanism. In the past, a method [9] at least noise generators. In this case, it is necessary also to
was proposed to evaluate the correlation coefficient between the take into account correlation coefficients between each couple
EIVN and the EICN along with the three noise sources. This of noise generators. Since op-amps are three-port network, at
method has two main drawbacks: 1) It neglects the correlation least three noise generators and three correlation coefficients are
coefficient between the two EICNs and 2) the proposed proce- required to model their noise behavior. The two most diffused
dure is very complicated, requiring seven measurement steps. op-amp noise models are shown in Fig. 2. As shown in Fig. 2(a),
In this paper, we propose a cross-correlation-based method to the first model is based on four noise generators [12]–[15]:
evaluate the three noise sources and the correlation coefficients and are the noise generators related to the noninverting input
between each couple of noise sources. The full op-amp noise port, while and are the noise generators related to the in-
verting input port.
Manuscript received February 27, 2008; revised April 24, 2008. First pub- Generally, there should exist a corresponding correlation co-
lished June 6, 2008; current version published February 4, 2009. This work was
supported by the Ministero degli Affari Esteri under the RHESSA Project. This
efficient between each of these four quantities. Noise generators
paper was recommended by H. Schmid. at the two input ports are usually assumed equal to one another
The authors are with the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e so that , due to the high symmetry of
Sistemistica, University of Calabria, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende, Italy the input differential amplifier. The other op-amp noise model
(e-mail: ggiusi@deis.unical.it; crupi@unical.it; cpace@unical.it; magnonep@
deis.unical.it). [see Fig. 2(b)] is based on three noise generators [16]: and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCSI.2008.927011 are the current noise generators between the noninverting
1549-8328/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE

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98 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 56, NO. 1, JANUARY 2009

Fig. 2. Two popular op-amp noise models with (a) four and (b) three equivalent input noise sources. Generally, noise generators are correlated one to the other.

and ground and between the inverting input and ground and parameters. The system has four outputs , which corre-
is the voltage noise source in series with one or the other input spond to the outputs of voltage amplifiers . The op-amp
terminal. By assuming that and of the previous model under test (OA4) works in a transimpedance amplifier config-
are in series through the differential op-amp input impedance, uration with gain . Voltage amplifiers and are
we have . Moreover, under the hypothesis that connected to the output of while and are connected
and are uncorrelated, the power spectral density (PSD) to its noninverting input. Voltage amplifier gains must be equal
of is . Note that, in the particular case in one to the other. Moreover, the particular implementation of am-
which the noninverting input terminal is connected to ground, plifiers , , and is not important. They are modeled with
the op-amp is reduced to a single input port device, and the the classical two-port noise model. Differently from
simple model of Fig. 1 applies. In the noise model of the previous voltage amplifiers, is specifically an op-amp
Fig. 2(b), we have three noise generators, and hence, we can (OA3)-based voltage amplifier. Outputs are the inputs
compute three different cross-correlation coefficients of a spectrum analyzer which performs cross correlations among
the four channels. We will refer the output values with respect to
the input of the voltage amplifiers in order to render the discus-
sion independent on the particular choice of their gains. The
proposed method consists of three measurement steps.
In the first measurement step, we use the circuit configuration
shown in Fig. 3. The input-referred outputs are

(1)

where and are the cross-correlation coefficients be-


tween , and , , respectively; is the correlation (2)
coefficient between , and , ; are the PSDs of
, , and . is the cross spectrum between and where is parallel between and and is the total
. Note that, because the cross spectra have real and imaginary noise coming from these resistors. By taking the cross spectra,
components, , , and are complex functions of the we obtain
frequency. Which is the relationship between and ? Be-
cause of the high symmetry of the op-amp input, it is licit to
assume that and so
that and . As discussed in the
introduction, noise analysis typically assumes that all the corre-
lation coefficients equal to zero. To our knowledge, only and
have been experimentally investigated. In the next section, (3)
we will describe a method to extract also , which cannot be
negligible, as it will be shown in Section V. where is the cross spectrum between and in step 1,
is the cross spectrum between and , and is
III. DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD the cross spectrum between and . If the current noise
and are negligible, we have
As discussed in the previous section, a complete op-amp noise
characterization requires the evaluation of six noise quantities,
the three spectra , , and and the three cross spectra
, , and , which allow us to calculate
the correlation coefficients according to (1). Fig. 3 shows a
schematic of the system proposed to evaluate these six noise (4)

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GIUSI et al.: FULL MODEL AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NOISE IN OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER 99

Therefore, after step 2, we obtain a fourth noise parameter

(8)

and a relationship between the remaining two noise quantities

(9)

The problem now boils down to determine another equation


relating and , which is the target of the suc-
cessive step. In the third measurement step, op-amps OA4 and
OA3 maintain the same configuration as in step 2 but the values
of resistors and are increased by the factor in order to
maintain the same gain. Now, (9) can be written as

(10)

By combining (9) and (10), we can obtain and


. Therefore, the proposed three-measurement-step
procedure allows us to evaluate all the six noise quantities.
It is worth noting that the validity of our method is limited
by the approximations done in (4) and (7). These assumptions
are usually verified if the PSDs of the EICNs of the measuring
amplifiers , , and are negligible with respect to the
Fig. 3. Schematic of the system used to evaluate the op-amp noise parameters. PSD of the EICN of the op-amp under test , . Conse-
OA4 is the op-amp under test. In step 2, OA4 and OA3 exchange their position. quently, the method works well if we characterize the noise in
In step 3, resistances R and R change their values, maintaining the same
ratio. C , which reduces the measurement bandwidth, is due to the op-amp bipolar-input op-amps by using MOS input op-amps in the mea-
common-mode input capacitances. suring system, as it will be shown in the next section. Really, for
op-amps with a MOS input stage, current noise generators have
a very low value, so their contribution is negligible in most of
By assuming that is a simple resistor , after step 1, we the practical cases. The only significant noise parameter is
obtain three of the six noise quantities which can be obtained in a single measurement step by taking
the cross correlation between and (configuration of step
1). Moreover, in this case, amplifiers and are not neces-
sary, so the whole system reduces to only two outputs.

(5) IV. APPLICATION OF THE METHOD


The proposed method has been applied to perform the full
where and are the PSD of and , respectively. In op-amp noise characterization of the low-noise bipolar-input
the second measurement step, op-amps OA4 and OA3 exchange op-amp OP27. Data sheets report pA Hz at 1 kHz
their position. Therefore, to obtain the new equations, it is suffi- with a corner frequency Hz, and nV Hz at
cient to exchange the subscripts three and four in the right-hand 1 kHz with a corner frequency Hz. Fig. 4 shows the
side of (3) electrical implementation of the proposed system. The electrical
circuit is enclosed in a metal box for shielding against external
interferences. The acquisition system is a PC-based spectrum
analyzer composed of a PC equipped with an eight-channel-
input DSA board (PXI 4472) manufactured by National Instru-
ments. Voltage amplifiers are op-amp based, but as dis-
cussed in the previous section, they are not necessary. Unless the
(6) op-amp is under test, all the other op-amps are TLC070 which
has a MOS input stage. Op-amp TLC070 has been chosen be-
Neglecting and , we obtain cause of its very low current noise fA Hz, so as to
make valid the approximations of (4) and (7). Voltage amplifier
gain is equal to 101 in order to have a sufficient signal-to-noise
ratio at the input of the PC-based spectrum analyzer. In step 2,
, k , while in step 3 k and
k so that in (10). Feedback impedance
(7) of amplifier is a resistance with in parallel a capacitor

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100 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 56, NO. 1, JANUARY 2009

Fig. 6. OP27 current noise extracted with the proposed method. It is apparent
p
that current noise generators of the two inputs are equal. The flat value is 0.6
pA= Hz and the corner frequency is about 63 Hz (Table I). These values well
agree with data reported on the OP27 data sheet.

Fig. 4. Electrical implementation of the schematic of Fig. 3. All the voltage


amplifiers are op-amp based. The op-amp under test is the OP27, while op-amp
TLC070 is used in voltage amplifiers because of its low EICN.

Fig. 7. Real components of cross-correlation coefficients. C is about 0.5 and


it has a flat spectrum. C and C are about 0.02 at higher frequencies but
became higher (about 0.05 at 1 Hz) toward lower frequencies.

p
Fig. 5. OP27 voltage noise extracted with the proposed method. The flat value
is 3 nV= Hz and the corner frequency is about 2.25 Hz (Table I). These values
well agree with data reported on the OP27 data sheet.

used for the stability compensation of . The cross-corre-


lation contributions in (3) depend on the value. The higher
is, the higher is the sensitivity of the method to extract the
Fig. 8. Imaginary components of cross-correlation coefficients. All of them are
correlation coefficients but the lower the bandwidth. In order negligible.
to obtain a good tradeoff, we chose k . Figs. 5
and 6 show the extracted , , and spectra which well
agree with data reported in data sheets. It is apparent that real parts of and are about 0.02 at higher frequencies
and are identical as tacitly assumed in op-amp data sheets. but become higher (about 0.05 at 1 Hz) toward lower frequen-
Figs. 7 and 8 show the extracted real and imaginary components cies. A factor that was not taken into account is the effect of the
of correlation coefficients , , and . Spectra were fitted common-mode capacitances of the op-amp input terminals to-
with the law , and the results are shown in Table I. ward ground. In Fig. 3, the common-mode capacitances of the
Imaginary components are null while real components are not inverting terminal of OA4, the common-mode capacitance of
negligible in the low-frequency range near 1 Hz. In particular, noninverting input of OA3 and the input capacitance of are
real part of is about 0.5, and it has a flat spectrum, while collected in a stray capacitance .

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GIUSI et al.: FULL MODEL AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NOISE IN OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER 101

TABLE I
EXTRACTED NOISE PARAMETERS BY FITTING THE SPECTRA OF FIGS. 5–8
WITH THE LAW A=f +
N . VOLTAGE NOISE AND CURRENT NOISE
IN THE FLAT PART OF THE SPECTRUM AGREE WELL WITH DATA
REPORTED ON THE OP27 DATASHEET

Fig. 10. Measured and expected PSDs at the output of the test circuit as shown
in Fig. 9. Expected PSD well agree with the measured data. In addition, it is
shown the PSD neglecting the cross-correlation coefficients. An error of about
40% is calculated in the whole frequency range.

To make the analysis simpler, we can use the well-verified ap-


proximations and to obtain

Fig. 9. Test circuit used for the validation of the proposed method. (13)
From (13), it is evident that cross-correlation contribution de-
pends on the and values. In this example, k ,
The effect of this capacitance is that of reducing the measure-
M , and is equal to their parallel. Notice that this
ment bandwidth to a few kilohertz. For this reason, the sampling
is just the case of a differential amplifier configuration. In par-
frequency has been chosen equal to 2 kHz, and the spectra are
ticular, increases the overall noise while lowers it. In this
shown only until 1 kHz. Large variance in correlation coeffi-
example, the contribution is very low due the very low
cients (Figs. 7 and 8) is due to the cross-correlation operation
value. In addition, the voltage-noise contribution is negligible,
which is intrinsically very slow in obtaining convergence. Mea-
so that (13) can be written as
surement time depends on the desired variance in the spectra.
Useful information can be obtained after some hours of mea-
surement for each step. (14)
Fig. 10 shows the measured output PSD and the expected
V. VALIDATION OF THE METHOD
PSD according to (13). Noise parameters in (13) are the same
In order to validate the proposed method, we compared noise as calculated in the measurements reported in the previous sec-
measurements obtained in the test circuit shown in Fig. 9 with tions. Measured and extracted PSD perfectly coincide. In addi-
the results expected by using the noise parameters extracted in tion, shown in Fig. 10 is the PSD when one neglects the
the previous section on the same physical op-amp. To highlight contribution. It can be easily shown from (14) that the max-
the usefulness of the proposed procedure, we considered a case imum error in neglecting corresponds to the case in which
in which the always neglected parameter remarkably im- which was just our particular choice. The measured
pacts the noise behavior of the circuit. The test circuit consists of error in the whole frequency range is about 40%. This experi-
the general topology for op-amp-based amplifiers. Indeed, it can mental result clearly indicates that it is not always licit to discard
be reduced to a transimpedance amplifier , in noise analysis of op-amp-based circuits.
to a voltage amplifier , or to a differential amplifier in
which case is the parallel between and . The output VI. CONCLUSION
voltage referred at the op-amp input is We proposed a novel approach to fully characterize noise in
op-amp. The method allows the extraction not only of the spectra
(11) of the EICN and EIVN generators but also of their cross-corre-
lation coefficients, which are routinely neglected in noise anal-
where is the parallel between and and and ysis of op-amps. As an example of the application of the method,
are the thermal noise coming from and , respectively.
we extracted all noise parameters of the low-noise bipolar-input
The PSD is
op-amp OP27. We showed how the knowledge of the cross-cor-
relation coefficients is necessary to perfectly predict the noise be-
havior of op-amp-based circuits. In particular, we reported a case
in which neglecting the cross-correlation coefficient between
(12) the two EICN generators leads to an error of about 40%.

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102 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: REGULAR PAPERS, VOL. 56, NO. 1, JANUARY 2009

REFERENCES Felice Crupi received the M.Sc. degree in elec-


[1] W. Sansen, “Analog design challenges in nanometer CMOS technolo- tronic engineering from the University of Messina,
gies,” in Proc. ASSCC, Nov. 12–14, 2007, pp. 5–9. Messina, Italy, in 1997 and the Ph.D. degree in elec-
[2] K. Jeongwook, L. Jung-Eun, S. Chun-Deok, and K. Hoon-Tae, “A 1/f- tronic engineering from the University of Firenze,
noise reduction architecture for an operational amplifier in a 0.13 m Firenze, Italy, in 2001.
standard digital CMOS technology,” in Proc. IEEE ASSCC, Nov. 2006, Since 1998, he has been a Visiting Scientist repeat-
pp. 179–182. edly at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center,
[3] C. Bronskowski and D. Schroeder, “An ultra low-noise CMOS oper- Leuven, Belgium. In 2000, he was a Visiting Scien-
ational amplifier with programmable noise-power trade-off,” in Proc. tist at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, York-
ESSCIRC, Sep. 2006, pp. 368–371. town Heights, NY. Since 2002, he has been with the
[4] R. Tumati, S. Collins, R. Smith, and D. E. Kotecki, “A low-noise low- University of Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy,
offset op amp in 0.35 m CMOS process,” in Proc. ICECS, Dec. 10–13, where he is currently an Associate Professor of electronics in the Dipartimento
2006, pp. 624–627. di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica. In 2006, he was a Visiting Scientist at
[5] L. ZhiYuan, Y. MingYan, and M. JianGuo, “A novel input stage based the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. His main research in-
on DTMOS for low-voltage low-noise operational amplifier,” in Proc. terests include reliability of very large scale integrated CMOS devices, electrical
APCCAS 2006, Dec. 4–7, 2006, pp. 1591–1594. characterization techniques for solid state electronic devices, and the design of
[6] P. Golden, P. Mole, and B. Harvey, “A +100 dB gain, rail-to-rail output, ultralow-noise electronic instrumentation. He has authored or coauthored more
low distortion, low noise amplifier in BiCMOS technology,” in Proc. than 80 publications in international scientific journals and in international con-
33rd ESSCIRC, Sep. 11–13, 2007, pp. 448–451. ference proceedings.
[7] C. Ciofi, F. Crupi, C. Pace, and G. Scandurra, “How to enlarge the band-
width without increasing the noise in OP-AMP-based transimpedance
amplifier,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 814–819,
Jun. 2006.
[8] F. Crupi, G. Giusi, and C. Pace, “Two-channel amplifier for high-sen- Calogero Pace was born in Palermo, Italy, in 1965.
sitivity voltage noise measurements,” in Proc. IEEE Instrum. Meas. He received the Laurea degree and the Ph.D. degree
Technol. Conf., May 1–3, 2007, pp. 1–4. in electronic engineering from the University of
[9] J. Xu, Y. Dai, and D. Abbott, “A complete operational amplifier noise Palermo, Palermo, in 1990 and 1994, respectively.
model: Analysis and measurement of correlation coefficient,” IEEE In 1996, he was an Assistant Professor with
Trans. Circuits Syst. I, Fundam. Theory Appl., vol. 47, no. 3, pp. the University of Messina, Messina, Italy. Since
420–424, Mar. 2000. 2002, he has been with the University of Calabria,
[10] H. Rothe and W. Dahlike, “Theory of noisy four poles,” Proc. IRE, vol. Arcavacata di Rende, Italy, where he is currently
44, no. 6, pp. 811–818, Jun. 1956. an Associate Professor of electronics in the Dipar-
[11] H. A. Haus et al., “Representation of noise in linear two-ports,” Proc. timento di Elettronica, Informatica e Sistemistica.
IRE, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 69–74, Jan. 1960. He is currently involved in research projects on the
[12] T. Robe, “Taming noise in IC OP AMPS,” Electron. Design, vol. 15, study of nanocrystal memory devices, on the design of low-noise electronic
pp. 64–70, Jul. 19, 1974. instrumentation, and on the design and characterization of optoelectronic gas
[13] D. F. Stout, Handbook of Operational Amplifier Circuit Design. New sensors.
York: McGraw-Hill, 1976, pp. 45–51.
[14] J. R. Hufault, Operational Amplifiers Network Design. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley, 1986, pp. 36–48.
[15] G. B. Clayton and B. W. G. Newby, B. H. Newnes, Ed., Operational
Amplifiers, 1992, ch. 2-3. Paolo Magnone was born in Italy on June 22, 1981.
[16] C. D. Motchenbacher and J. A. Connelly, Low Noise Electronic System He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electronic
Design. New York: Wiley, 1993. engineering from the University of Calabria, Arcava-
cata di Rende, Italy, in 2003 and 2005, respectively,
where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. de-
gree in the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica
Gino Giusi received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees e Sistemistica.
in electronic engineering from the University From 2006 to 2007 and 2007 to 2008, he was with
of Messina, Messina, Italy, in 2002 and 2005, the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center, Leuven,
respectively. Belgium, within the APROTHIN project (Marie
In 2005, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Interuni- Curie Actions), where he worked on parameter
versity Microelectronics Center, Leuven, Belgium. extraction and matching analysis of FinFET devices. His research interests
In 2006, he was with the National Research Center, include the electrical characterization of semiconductor devices with particular
Catania, Italy. He is currently a Researcher with emphasis on the study of low-frequency noise.
the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica e
Sistemistica, University of Calabria, Arcavacata di
Rende, Italy. His main research interests include
the design of ultralow-noise instrumentation, the characterization of devices
through noise measurements, and the electrical characterization of modern
CMOS devices and memories.

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