FEN filter design using tantalum and silicon integrated circuits

An economical approach to integrated active RC filter design is described. Complex filter networks are broken down into a series of cascadable second-order filter sections consisting of tantalum thin-film RC networks and semiconductor integrated operational amplifiers. Two building blocks are available for any desired frequency within a decade and for any desired filter function (e.g., low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, band-reject, all-pass, etc.). One building block is for low Q realizations and contains one amplifier; the other is for high Q realizations and contains two. The considerable versatility of this approach is obtained by 1) a network synthesis approach based on decomposing a given second-order function into a low Q asymptotic approximation of this function in cascade with an active frequency emphasizing network and 2) by the characteristics of tantalum and silicon integrated circuits.