A low-power and high-gain frontend for GHz application using trans-impedance amplifier for fast particle detection

In this paper, we present a front-end for gigahertz applications, FGATI, which utilizes a transimpedance amplifier design to amplify the current signal from a diamond particle detector. The transimpedance amplifier design adopts a flipped-voltage-follower-based current-mirror (FVF-CM) topology as theinput stage, offering advantages suchaslowpowerconsumption, largetransimpedance gain, gigahertz bandwidth, and reasonable noise levels. The FVF-CM topology was realized to improve noise reduction with a fully differential output configuration. The design was implemented as an ASIC chip using 65nm CMOS silicon technology. The bandwidth measurement of the FGATI prototype demonstrated a 3-dB bandwidth of 1.2GHz. Furthermore, the amplifier’s power consumption is low, drawing only 7.2mW/channel from a 1.2V power supply, including the buffer stage. The measurement of the FGATI output signal indicated an excellent transimpedance gain of 79.2dBΩ and a noise level of 6.7mVrms. These findings highlight the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed front-end design in high-frequency applications.