A chopper current-feedback instrumentation amplifier with a 1mHz 1/ƒ noise corner and an AC-coupled ripple-reduction loop

This paper presents a chopper instrumentation amplifier for interfacing precision thermistor bridges. For high CMRR and DC gain, the amplifier employs a three-stage current-feedback topology with nested-Miller compensation. By chopping both the input and intermediate stages of the amplifier, a 1 mHz noise corner was achieved at an input-referred noise power spectral density (PSD) of 15 nV/ Hz. To reduce chopper ripple, the amplifier employs a continuous-time AC-coupled ripple reduction loop. Due to its continuous-time nature, the loop causes no noise folding to DC and hence offers improved noise performance over auto-zeroed amplifiers. The loop reduces chopper ripple by more than 60 dB, to levels below the amplifier’s own input-referred noise. Furthermore, a maximum input referred offset of 5 V and a CMRR greater than 120 dB were measured at a supply current of 230 A at 5 V.