Concept

Cascode — where it appears

A second transistor standing between the first and its load, its base held at a fixed voltage so that the lower device's collector barely moves. It removes the input capacitance's multiplication by the stage gain and raises the output resistance to rₒ times whichever of β and gₘrₒ is smaller, and it costs two volts of supply that appear in neither expression.

Named by 2 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

A cascode multiplies rₒ by β, not by gₘrₒ — and the two are 21× apart. computed by solving, not by drawing. The output resistance of a cascode stage, measured by driving the output node with a current source and reading the voltage, against the current gain of the upper device. The plain stage's is 80 kΩ — rₒ and nothing else. The cascode's is 11.5 MΩ at β = 150, which is βrₒ to within a tenth and is 21 times below the gₘrₒ² every reference gives. The reason is in the netlist rather than in the algebra: the upper device's base draws current, so its rπ sits from the lower device's collector to signal ground and shunts the node the feedback works through. What the arrangement buys therefore scales with β and stops when β does, and the curve is the two expressions drawn against the measurement.

The device that never sees the swing

A second transistor standing between the first and the load does two things that every reference gives one expression each for, and one of the two expressions has no ceiling in it. The output resistance is not gₘrₒ² — that is 248 megohms here, and the measurement is 11.5 — it is βrₒ, because the upper device's base draws current and shunts the very node the feedback works through. The bandwidth really is fourteen times better, and what it costs is two volts of a five-volt supply.

semiconductors · Cascode

A cascoded mirror is 90× the output resistance, and 43% of it goes back into the reference. computed by solving, not by drawing. The output resistance of a two-transistor mirror and of the same mirror with a cascode on each branch, measured by moving the output a little either side of its operating point and reading the current, against the current gain of every device. The plain mirror sits at rₒ = 89 kΩ and does not move. The cascoded one reaches 7.39 MΩ at β = 150 and rises with β until β stops being the smaller of the two quantities, where it saturates on gₘrₒ² = 268 MΩ. The third curve replaces the diode-connected upper device with a held voltage at the same potential and recovers 1.76 times the resistance, which is the upper device's base current being charged a second time — to the reference branch, where it moves the mirror's own bias.

The source that holds to the supply

Putting a second transistor on each branch of a current mirror is always described as buying output resistance and costing headroom, and both halves of that are measured here rather than repeated. The resistance goes from 82 kΩ to 7.39 MΩ, the floor rises by 0.71 volts — and the range over which the current is actually what it was set to goes from 1.70 volts to 9.09, because a plain mirror's current never stops climbing. Forty-three per cent of the resistance that should be there is missing, and it is in the reference branch.

semiconductors · Cascode

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Design tradeoff Early effect Model range Output impedance Compliance range Current mirror Gain–bandwidth product Input capacitance Intrinsic gain Operating point

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