cross-quad and cascomp circuits

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I've read several threads about Professor Hawksford, and I know that he has the cross-quad and cascomp circuits for input stages in a couple of his papers.

Could someone tell me exactly what the advantages are of these circuits (that is, why someone would want to use them)?

Thank you!
 
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=prophead&n=3169


http://www.analog.com/UploadedFiles/Data_Sheets/524850917MAT04_d.pdf

(fig 6)


Hawksford also explored some related diff pair input linearization techniques

J4 DISTORTION CORRECTION CIRCUITS FOR AUDIO AMPLIFIERS, M.O.J. Hawksford, JAES, vol.29, no.7, 8, July/August 1981

At http://www.essex.ac.uk/ese/research/audio_lab/malcolms_publications.html

Somewhere you might also find Gilbert’s “multi-tanh” proposal

Its not clear that these techniques are necessary in audio amplifier design - high loop gain, emitter degen and bootstrapped cascode appear to be enough for super low distortion in audio amp inputs
 
thanx dimitri

4146844 fig 4 looks like what I was thinking of, don't know were my ref came from

I believe the cascomp was actually used in tektronix front end amplifiers - unusual for a patented circuit


The main utility of these enhancements would be in situations where you cannot have high global loop gain

in audio amplifiers it is quite possible to keep the differential input V << 1mV with high loop gain - then the ordinary diff pair is linear enough to not be the limmiting factor
 
Gilbert curcuit

I1/2=I2=I3=1ma, I4=20mA
Quinn added series cascode after this
 

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Dimitri, 1968 instead of 1998.

see also: B.Gilbert, A new wide band amplifier technique, IEEE J. SSC, 1998, pp.353-365

IEEE J. SSC, 1968, pp.353-365

rtarbell,
Also the book "Analog Circuit Design", edited by Jim Williams and published by EDN, has two chapters by John Addis and Barrie Gilbert that might help answer your question.

Tom
 
Thanks for all of your inputs! Let me ask, supose I were to make the cascomp in my input stage. I would make the regular differential pair with about 5mA of tail current and an active load to the VAS stage. For the inner differential pair (the cascomp circuit itself), is there any rule of thumb as to what its tail current should be?
 
Also the book "Analog Circuit Design", edited by Jim Williams and published by EDN, has two chapters by John Addis and Barrie Gilbert that might help answer your question
Hi Tom2! I have not got it. Can you summarize those chapters? I want to know reason.
Does Distortion decrease by local feedback or global feedback?
Does this techique have any improvement in a whole amp ? or Is it good when do analysing the only input stage ?
Thanks !
 
Schmook

They seem to be the same, at least for the case 1:n and n:1 cross-connected.

See patent 5933054: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5933054.pdf
From this patent:

" An example of the conventional bipolar OTAs was disclosed by Schmook in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. SC-10, No. 6, PP. 407-411, December 1975, in which two unbalanced differential pairs of bipolar transistors are employed. Two transistors of each pair has different emitter areas or sizes. Output ends or collectors of the two transistors of each pair are cross-coupled.

The transconductance linearization technique proposed by Schmook is known as the "Multi-tanh" technique, and has been practically used.

An application of this Multi-tanh technique was disclosed y Tanimoto et al., in IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 26, No. 7, PP. 937-945, July 1991."

This patent mentions an alternative approach to linearization.
 
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