Impact of MOSFET gate-oxide reliability on CMOS operational amplifier in a 130-nm low-voltage process

The effect of the MOSFET gate-oxide reliability on operational amplifier is investigated with the two-stage and folded-cascode structures in a 130-nm low-voltage CMOS process. The test operation conditions include unity-gain buffer (close-loop) and comparator (open-loop) configurations under the dc stress, ac stress with dc offset, and large-signal transition stress. After overstress, the small-signal parameters, such as small-signal gain, unity-gain frequency, and phase margin, are measured to verify the impact of gate-oxide reliability on circuit performances of the operational amplifier. The gate-oxide reliability in the operational amplifier can be improved by the stacked configuration under small-signal input and output application. The impact of soft and hard gate-oxide breakdowns on operational amplifiers with two-stage and folded-cascode structures has been analyzed and discussed. The hard breakdown has more serious impact on the operational amplifier.