Slew-rate removal technique for low-noise front-end preamplifiers

A novel slew-rate removal technique for monolithic front-end preamplifiers for detector readout is presented. It is based on the insertion of a feed-forward path in the gain stage that removes the slew-rate limitation without affecting noise, linearity or stability performances. The paper discusses the design steps of a low-noise high-speed voltage preamplifier in BiCMOS technology and compares the proposed solution with other slew-rate enhancement circuits. The simulated performances in terms of step response, noise, linearity and time-walk are presented and discussed.