DESIGN AND TESTING OF FAST, LOW-POWER, LOW-NOISE AMPLIFIER COMPARATOR VLSI CIRCUITS

We have designed and fabricated through MOSIS two amplifier-comparator chips using BICMOS technology for use with silicon strip detectors. The chips use BJT, JFET, MOSFET, and capacitor devices. BJT-MOS and BJT-JFET based amplifiers and comparators are implemented in various configurations. The resulting amplifiers provide good performance at less than 1 mW power per channel and illustrate the potential for such performance of circuits using BJT active devices with active loads of CMOS or JFET transistors.