A slew rate improved operational amplifier circuit is provided to improve the slew rates of an operational amplifier with minimal sacrifices in power dissipation and other operational amplifier parameters. To improve the slew rates of operational amplifiers, additional current sources are activated when a slewing operation is detected. The detection of slewing operations and the activation of current sources upon detection can be implemented using two comparator circuits—one for a positive slewing operation, and one for a negative slewing operation. A sub-45 nm FinFET implementation of this slew rate improvement concept was implemented and compared against slew rate optimized individual two-stage operational amplifiers. Simulations show that slew rates were significantly improved by the implementation of the comparator circuits (5590 V/μs vs. 273 V/μs), with minimal increases in power dissipation (78 μW vs. 46 μW).
