Transient analysis of charge-transfer in SC filters-gain error and distortion

In switched-capacitor (SC) circuits, op amps often slew during the charge-transfer transient. When this happens, the charge-transfer error is no longer proportional to the input signal. The charge-transfer transient is studied in detail, taking into account the slewing behavior of the amplifiers. Analytical expressions are obtained for the charge-transfer error of an SC integrator. In switched-capacitor signal processing, the harmonic distortion can be defined as the harmonic distortion of the envelope of the sampled-data sequence. A Fourier analysis is carried out on the sampled-data sequence corrupted by the charge-transfer error due to slewing of the operational transconductance amplifiers. Analytical expressions are derived for harmonic distortions of an SC integrator. Analysis of the results shows that slew-induced harmonic distortion can be minimized by using large transconductance. It is possible to design SC filters with low power consumption and low harmonic distortion without resorting to class AB amplifiers.