Design of a CMOS transimpedance amplifier for solid-state nanopore based DNA nucleotide sensing

A three stage transimpedance amplifier design for nanopore based DNA nucleotide sequencing, using the 90 nm IBM CMOS process is reported. It uses a cascade of a differential folded cascode and a common source stage to deliver high gain. The design demonstrates a DC gain (low frequency gain) of 60 dB along with an unity gain frequency of 200 MHz. The circuit performance was simulated using Tanner VLSI CAD tools version 12 for 1.2 V power supply. The paper provides details of the DC, AC, transient and noise analysis of this transimpedance amplifier design.