Simple rail-to-rail constant-transconductance input stage operating in strong inversion

A CMOS op-amp input and gain stage suitable for low voltage operation are introduced. The input stage operates in strong inversion and has common-mode range beyond rail-to-rail. It uses two complementary differential pairs connected in parallel. The common-mode dependent current biasing employs only four transistors, does not require additional voltage references, current switches and/or current mirrors and does not increase the minimum required supply voltage. The variation of the net transconductance is approximately 15% over the entire common-mode range. The gain-stage has constant output resistance. In addition it reduces the variation of the net transconductance due to variations in /spl mu//sub n///spl mu//sub p/ ratio.