IC-constrained optimization of continuous-time Gm–C filters

This paper presents an automated synthesis procedure for integrated continuous-time fully-differential Gm−C filters. Such procedure builds up on a general extended state-space system representation which provides simple matrix algebra mechanisms to evaluate the noise and distortion performances of filters, as well as, the effect of amplitude and impedance scaling operations. The proposed technique not only addresses the dynamic range optimization under power dissipation constraints, but also accounts for other relevant integrated circuit related features, such as transconductor decomposition in unitary instances, spread of capacitances and estimated area occupation, among other characteristics. The proposed approach, implemented in the MATLAB® framework, can be also used as an exploratory tool to compare different circuit implementations for a given set of filter specifications. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.