Techniques of Reducing Switching Artifacts in Chopper Amplifiers

Chopping technique up-modulates amplifier's offset and low-frequency noise up to its switching frequency, and therefore can achieve low offset and low temperature drift. On the other hand, it generates unwanted AC and DC errors due to its switching artifacts such as up-modulated ripple and glitches. This paper summarizes various circuit techniques of reducing such switching artifacts, and then discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. The comparison shows that newer designs with advanced circuit techniques can achieve lower DC and AC errors with higher chopping frequency.