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Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 991-997

On the realization of DO-OTA-C oscillators

Hakan Kuntman, Aydin ()zpinar
Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
80626 Maslak, lstanbul, Turkey
Accepted 1 May 1998

Abstract
The basic aim of this paper is to give design considerations of current-mode high frequency DO-OTA-C oscillator topologies achieving
noninteractive control of b and to with a minimum number of components. Starting from DO-OTA-C (grounded capacitor) filter topologies,
reported in the literature and employing a minimum number of components, novel DO-OTA-C oscillator topologies are generated by
converting filters into oscillators. Furthermore, the influence of the OTA nonidealities on oscillator performance is investigated. The
performance of the proposed topologies are demonstrated with SPICE simulation program. The oscillator configurations provide frequency
control by changing the OTA transconductances with biasing currents without affecting oscillation condition and are very suitable for VLSI
design since they are composed only of DO-OTAs and grounded capacitors. 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: DO-OTA-C oscillators; Oscillator topologies; Filter topologies

1. Introduction
Sinusoidal oscillators play an important role in instrumentation, communication and signal processing applications. Sinusoidal oscillators based on OTA-C structures
have attracted considerable attention in recent years because
they offer several advantages over conventional op-amp
based oscillators as well as providing the evaluation of
fully integrated oscillators in VLSI design with CMOS technology. It is well-known that OTAs provide highly linear
electronic tunability of their transconductance (gin) and
require just a few or even no resistors for their internal
circuitry and have more reliable high frequency performance because of the current mode operation which has
been established as art important topic in analogue signal
processing owing to ils advantage over the voltage mode,
particularly for higher frequency of operation. Because of
these features, the OTAs are increasingly replacing operational amplifiers and :in the past few years, a number of
OTA-C based oscillators have been reported [1-9].
Recently, it has been demonstrated that, owing to the
single output of the conventional OTA structures, the circuit
behaviour such as filter transfer functions is often expressed
in terms of voltage ratios which limits the OTA capabilites
of processing current signals. To alleviate this difficulty and
exploit the advantages of current mode approach, dual
output OTAs are proposed. Current-mode active filters
0026-2692/98/$19.00 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
PII S 0 0 2 6 - 2 6 9 2 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 0 6 3 - 9

incorporating the DO-OTA have been known for some

time. Although several DO-OTA-C filter structures have
been reported in literature [10-14], few works on DOOTA-C sinusoidal oscillators have been performed [15].
The basic aim of this paper is to give design considerations of current-mode high frequency DO-OTA-C oscillator
topologies achieving noninteractive control of b and f~o with
a minimum number of components. Starting from DOOTA-C (grounded capacitor) filter topologies, reported in
the literature and employing a minimum number of components [10-14], novel DO-OTA-C oscillator topologies are
generated by converting filters into oscillators. Furthermore,
the influence of the OTA nonidealities on oscillator performance is investigated by including the finite input and
output impedances and transconductance frequency dependencies of DO-OTAs into derived equations.

2. Methodology used to obtain oscillator topologies

A general sinusoidal oscillator circuit has two conjugate
poles on the imaginary axis and can be described by a
second order characteristic equation as follows:
(S2 --~ bs + fl2)Iout = 0

(1)

where b = 0 is oscillation condition and t o is oscillation

frequency. The general biquadratic transfer function is

992

H. Kuntman, A. Ozpinar/Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 991-997

IOUT

(a)
(e)

lOUT

(0

C 1 C2 ' n ' ~ ~

lOUT

(e)

,;o:

(d)

~ c2

lOUT

(i)
Fig. 1. Proposed DO-OTA-C oscillator topologies.

,,g,
(h)

993

H. Kuntman, A. Ozpinar/Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 9 9 1 - 9 9 7

Table 1
Expressions for oscillation conditions and oscillator frequencies of topologies illustrated in Fig. 1, derived assuming ideal OTAs
Topology

b
gm5

gml'gm2"gm3

Fig. lb

gin3 -- gin6
C1

gml "gm2"gm4
CI C2gm5

Fig. lc

gin3 - gm6
C2
gml gin3
----- gm5

gml "grn2"gmn
CI C2gm5

C2

Fig. ld

gin4

C1C2g,~

gml "gm2"gm3
C1C2gm4

Fig. if

gml - gin3

gmI'gm2

Fig. lg

gin3 -- gm4

gml "gin2

Fig. lh

gin':.-gm4
C2
gmlgm3
----- gm5

gin4

CI

(a)

C,C2

gral - g,~
C1

C,

>

gml'gm2

Fig. le

Fig. li

Io +

G C2
G C2

v c

H(s) =

ii(s~ :

a2 $2 +
$2

.,ov,

(b)

gml'gmz'gm3
CI C2gm4

Fig. 2. (a) DO-OTA model by using two single-ended OTAs; (b) equivalent
circuit for DO-OTA including nonlinearities.

als + ao

+ b t s + b0

(2)

There are two possible methods of obtaining sinusoidal

oscillator from this transfer function. In the first method
the characteristic equation of the oscillator is obtained by
equating input current ,of filter,/in(S) to zero. In this case the
following oscillator characteristic equation is obtained:
(S 2 At- b s -[- ~2)Iou t : 0

(3)

The second way is connecting the output terminal of filter to

the input terminal. By doing so, the resulting oscillator
characteristic equation is expressed as:

[s2+(~)s+(~)J.Io(s)=O

,o y c o

i-o- O

gml'gm2
CIC2

given as follows:

lo(s)

>

rio2

gin2 "gin4
----- gm6

Fig. la

W+

(4)

If the oscillation condition is satisfied by equating the

coefficient of s to zero, this two equation yields undamped
oscillators.
3. Derived DO-OTA-C oscillator topologies
In this study nine DO-OTA-C sinusoidal oscillator structures are obtained by converting filters [10-13] into oscillators. The equation giving the oscillation condition of an
oscillator must include both positive and negative terms to
obtain stable oscillation which can be achieved by equating
the oscillation condition term to zero. Negative and positive
resistors implemented with CMOS DO-OTAs are added to
oscillator networks. These configurations have oscillation
frequencies controlled by transconductance gain without

affecting oscillation condition and capability of operation

at high frequencies. All of the proposed topologies are very
atractive in both monolotic integrated technology (IC)
and thin film fabrication due to including only grounded
capacitors. Furthermore, the parasitic capacitances can be
easily accounted and tuned since these capacitances are in
parallel with grounded capacitors.
Proposed DO-OTA-C oscillator topologies are shown in
Fig. 1. Equations derived for the oscillation conditions and
oscillation frequencies of the oscillator circuits illustrated in
Fig. 1 are given in Table 1 assuming that the circuits are
constructed with ideal DO-OTAs.
4. Effects of DO-OTA nonidealities to the performance
of the oscillators
The analyses in previous section were performed by
assuming the DO-OTAs as ideal voltage-controlled current
sources (VCCS). In contrary to ideal DO-OTA, the actual
DO-OTA represents a nonideal behaviour. There are three
main DO OTA nonidealities affecting the performance of
DO-OTA-C oscillator structure, namely the finite input and
output resistances, input and output capacitances and frequency dependent OTA transconductance.
DO-OTA is assumed an ideal voltage-controlled current
source and can be described by the following equation:

Io'- =gm(V +

- V-),

I 0 =gin(V-

- r +)

(5)

where I + , I o are dual output currents, V+ and V- denote

noninverting and inverting input voltage of the DO-OTA,
respectively.

994

H. Kuntman, A. Ozpinar/Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 991-997

The DO-OTA can be modelled by using two single-ended

OTAs, as shown in Fig. 2a. Applying the results of an earlier
work [16] obtained for single output OTA to the DO-OTA,
the nonidealities of actual circuit can be represented as
illustrated in Fig. 2b where Rin, Ro, fin and Co represent the
input and output resistance and capacitances for differential
operation, respectively. The unity gain intermediate stage
consisting of the dependent current source gm'(V+--V-), the
capacitor C and the resistor R is intended to represent the
frequency dependency of the OTA transconductance where
R = 1~gin, C = gin/cop and cop is the pole angular frequency.
In this study, starting from Fig. 2b, the frequency dependency of DO-OTA transconductance is modelled by a
single-pole transfer function given by
gm

gin(S) --

(6)

l+-~dp

C1Gol -1- C2(gml -- gin3 + Gol q- Go2 + 603) +

Cl C 2 "~

~']o2

2C1Gol
COl

C2gml

C2gm3

O)p

COp

~ - -

+ 2C2(Gol + Go2 + Go3) ~- Gol (Gol + Go2 + Go3) (10)

03p
032
D = CIGol + C2gml - C2gm3 + C2(Gol + Go2 + Go3)

+ 6olgml

6olgm3 + 26o1(G01 + 602 + Go3)

COp

COp

COp

E = gmlgm2 qt_ Golgml _ gm3Go 1 _.}_Gol (6o 1 _~_Go2 .~_Go3)

Applying the Routh-Hurwitz criteria to this equation, oscillation condition and oscillation frequency can be obtained
as follows:

to' =

~/

EB
BK - A D

Gol(gml - gin3) q- 2Gol(Gol q- Go2 -k- Go3)

2C1Gol + C2[gml - gm3 q- 2(Gol q- Go2 + Go3)Gol]

COp

The influence of the OTA nonidealities on the oscillation

condition and oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuits
proposed is demonstrated on a chosen circuit example of
Fig. If consisting of three DO-OTAs. By using the model of
Fig. 2 and nodal analysis, we obtain new b and t o expressions including the OTA nonidealities where we assume
Cl ~/= C2, Gol ~ Go2 @ Go3, 03PI= Cop(l, 2, 3):
lout = gin2 V2

(12)

Since A and B are too small positive numbers and since D

can be made zero,

~-

~p
Go1(6ol + Go2 + Go3)

lo3 = gm3 gl

(7)

lo3 -- Iol -- lout + (0 -- Vl)[SC 1 + Gol q- Go2 + Go3] = 0

(13)

CO2

gmlg,,2 + Got (gml - gin3) "q- (6ol + 602 + 603)Gol

2C1Gol + C2[gml - gin3 "q- 2(Goi + Go2 + Go3)Gol] Gol(Gol + 602 q- 603)
C1C2 +
+
~
03p

/ol = gml V1

(11)

D(BK - AD) + B2E

Moreover, equivalent output conductance and the transconductance bandwidth of the kth OTA are denoted by
Gok = l/Rok and coPk(k = 1, 2, 3, "'). The input and output
capacitances Cin and Co do not appear explicitly in the given
expressions, since their effect are included to the external
capacitances.

b=

K=CIC2+--

(14)

It can be concluded from the above expressions that the

influence of OTA nonidealities cannot be ignored in the
design of OTA-C oscillators. Note that these equations convert to the ideal case equations given in Table 1 for the same
topology, if the quantities Gok and coPkare taken as Gok = 0
and wpk = ~ (k = 1, 2, 3, "").
Also note that equations for b and f~o in similar form but
in more complexity are obtained for the other oscillator
topologies illustrated in Fig. 1, if DO-OTA nonidealities
are taken into consideration.

lol + (0 -- Vz)[sC 1 q- Gol] = 0

5. S i m u l a t i o n results a n d d i s c u s s i o n
(As 4 -t- n s 3 + Ks 2 + Ds -~- E)'lou t ~ 0

-- C1C2

0,~

B -- 2C1C~ q- _C1Gol
_
+ C2(Gol + Go2 + Go3)
cop

(8)
(9)

Proposed topologies are simulated by using the CMOS

cascode DO-OTA structure illustrated in Fig. 3 with the
SPICE simulation program. The power supplies were chosen as VDD = 10 V and Vss = - 1 0 V. Dimensions of MOS
devices are given in Table 2 and device model parameters
used for SPICE simulations are shown in Table 3. Resulting

H. Kuntman, A. Ozpinar/Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 991-997

995

+ VDD

F20

[22
-

VSS

Fig. 3. CMOS cascade DO-OTA structure used for SPICE simulations.

output current wave ff~rm for a chosen circuit example of
Fig. l a is plotted in Fig. 4. For all simulations the capacitances of C1 and C2 are taken as C1 = C2 = 50 pF. The
biasing current of the OTAs is chosen as Iss = 500/zA
which yields an O T A transconductance of 450/zA/V for
Table 2
Dimensions of MOS transistors in CMOS DO-OTA structure shown in
Fig. 3

M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
Mll
M12
M13
M14
M15
M16
M17
M18
M19
M20
M21
M22

W (,~m)

L (/~m)

30
30
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5

3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

the D O - O T A structure illustrated in Fig. 3 with MOS device

dimensions given in Table 2
The simulation results obtained for oscillator topologies
proposed are illustrated with theoretical results in Table 4. It
can be easily observed from Table 4 that the D O - O T A nonidealities cause a decrease in oscillator frequency.
Another important feature of the topologies obtained in
the frame of this work is the high output voltage amplitude.
In fact, the topologies are current-mode circuits where the
output quantity is a current. Choosing proper values for the
load resistor output voltage amplitudes of the order of
several volts can be obtained even at high frequencies.
Note that large output voltage amplitude even at high
frequencies is provided by the current-mode operation
where the output current amplitude is constant and in case
of a resistive load the output voltage amplitude is determined as the product of the output current and the load
resistance. Simulation results of output current and output
voltage performed for different load resistance values are
summarised in Table 5. It is observed from the results of
Table 5 that the output current can be assumed independent
of the load resistance while the output voltage increases
proportional to RL.

6. C o n c l u s i o n

In this paper, design considerations of current-mode high

frequency D O - O T A - C oscillator topologies achieving noninteractive control of b and [20 with a minimum number of

H. Kuntman, A. Ozpinar/Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 991-997

996

200uA~

i
i
I
i

-200uA
i
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

50us
=

q. . . . . . . . . . . . .

52us

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

S4us

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

S6us

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

SSus

60us

I(RL)
Time

Fig. 4. S i m u l ~ e d w a v e ~ r m ~ r o u ~ u t c u ~ e n t o f o s c i l l a t o r t o p o l o g y i l l u s ~ a t e d i n

Fig. la, Cl = C2 = 5 0 p F , RL = 1000 O.

Table 3
MOS model parameters used for SPICE simulations
. M O D E L P PMOS ( L E V E L = 2 L D = 0.580687U T O X = 432.0 X 10 -l NSUB = 1 X 1016
+ V T O = - 0 . 9 4 4 0 4 8 KP = 18.5 X 10 -6 G A M M A = 0.435 PHI = 0.6 U O = 271 U E X P = 0.242315
+ U C R I T = 20581.4 D E L T A = 4.32096 X 10-SVMAX = 33274.4 XJ = 0.4U
L A M B D A = 0.06200118
+ N F S = 1 X 1011 NEFF = 1.001 NSS = 1 x 10m T P G = - 1

RSH = 10.25 C G D O = 4.83117 x 10 -1

+ C G S O = 4.83117 10 - m C G B O = 1.293 X 10 -9 CJ = 0.0001307 MJ = 0.4247

+ C J S W = 4.613 x 10-1 M J S W = 0.2185 PB = 0.75 XQC = 1
. M O D E L N NMOS ( L E V E L = 2 L D -- 0.414747U T O X = 505.0 x 10 -1 NSUB = 1.35634 x 1016
+ V T O = 0.864893 K P = 44.9 10 -6 G A M M A = 0.981 PHI = 0.6 U O = 656 U E X P = 0.211012
+ U C R I T = 107603 D E L T A = 3.53172 x 10 -5 V M A X = 100000 XJ = 0.4U
L A M B D A = 0.0107351
+ N F S = 1 x 10 u NEFF = 1.001 NSS = 1 x 1012 T P G = 1 RSH = 9.925 C G D O = 2.83588 x 10 -10
+ C G S O = 2.83588 x 10 -l C G B O = 7.968 x 10 m CJ = 0.0003924 MJ = 0.456300
+ C J S W = 5.284 10 IMJSW = 0.3199 XQC = 1

components is given. Starting from DO-OTA-C (grounded

capacitor) filter topologies, reported in the literature and
employing a m i n i m u m number of components, novel DOOTA-C oscillator topologies are generated. Furthermore,
Table 4
Theoretical and simulation results of oscillation frequency obtained for
proposed oscillator topologies
Topology

Theory

Simulation with actual

CMOS D O - O T A s

Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.

la
lb
lc
ld
le
If
lg
lh
li

1,342
1,433
1,488
1,472
1,433
1,433
1,433
1,433
1,537

MHz
MHz
MHz
MHz
MHz
MHz
MHz
MHz
MHz

1.297 M H z
1.358 M H z
1.431 M H z
1.37 M H z
1.355 M H z
1.365 M H z
1.36 M H z
1.35 M H z
1.509 M H z

the influence of the OTA nonidealities on oscillator performance is investigated by including the finite input and
output impedances and transconductance frequency dependencies of DO-OTAs into derived equations. The performance of the proposed topologies are demonstrated
with SPICE simulation program.
The main advantage provided by the circuits proposed is
the high output voltage amplitudes of the order of several
volts obtained by choosing proper values for the load resistors because of current-mode operation.
It was recently demonstrated that in conventional single
output OTA-C topologies the output signal level is limited
primarily by the slew-rate effect which seriously decreases
the amplitude to a level of several hundred millivolts at high
frequencies[8,17]. The topologies proposed eliminate this
limitations because of resistive load which makes these
circuits advantageous compared to the well-known singleoutput OTA-C circuits. Furthermore, the oscillator configurations enable frequency control by changing the OTA

H. Kuntman, A. Ozpinar/Microelectronics Journal 29 (1998) 991-997

Table 5
SPICE simulation results of output current and output voltage performed
for different load resistance 'values
Fig, la
RL = 1 [2
RL = 1 k[2
RL = 10k[2
Fig. lb
RL = 1 [2
RL = 1 k[2
RL = 10k[2
Fig. lc
RL = 1 [2
RL = 1 k[2
RL = 1012
Fig. ld
RL = 1 ~
RL = 1 k[2
RL = 5 k[2
Fig. le
RL = 1 f~
RL = 1 kfl
RL = 10kfl
Fig. If
RL = 1 [2
RL = I k[2
RL = 10k[2
Fig. lg
RL = 1 [2
RL = 1 k~
RL = 10k[2
Fig. lh
RL = 1 [2
RL = 1 k[2
RL = 10k[2
Fig. li
RL = 1 [2
RL = 1 kfl
RL ----10k[2

lotyrpp

Votrrpp

Frequency

376.255 #A
372.208/~A
398.098 #A

376.255 ~V
372.208 mV
3.98098 V

1.297 MHz

616.392 gA
709.969 #A
668.157/zA

616.392/~V
709.968 mV
6.6815 V

1.358 MHz

656.413/tA
649.716 ttA
602.833 #A

656.413/zV
649.716 mV
6.0283 V

1.431 MHz

1006.50'9/~A
1007.313 ~A
975.76:2/xA

1006.509/.iV
1007.313 mV
4.8788 V

1.37 MHz

718.01:2/~A
720.880 #A
688.346 ~A

718.012 #V
720.880 mV
6.8835 V

1.355 MHz

731.044/~A
774.261/zA
747.489 ~tA

731.451/~V
774.261 mV
7.4761 V

1.365 MHz

714.927./~A
736.62,1/~A
699.87"1/~A

714.922 #V
736.624 mV
6.796 V

1.36 MHz

679.07,1/zA
704.03"1/zA
675.921 ~A

679.074 #V
704.037 mV
6.7592 V

1.35 MHz

642.317 ~A
650.343/zA
576.071l ~A

642.317 ~V
650.343 mV
5.7607 V

1.509 MHz

transconductances with biasing currents without affecting

oscillation condition and are very suitable for VLSI design
since they are composed only with DO-OTAs and grounded
capacitors. Therefore, the circuits obtained provide new
possibilities for the circuit designer.

997

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