SUMMARY A new 0.5-V fully differential amplifier is proposed in this article. The structure incorporates a differential bulk-driven voltage follower with conventional gate-driven amplification stages. The bulk-driven voltage follower presents differential gain equal to unity while suppressing the input common-mode voltage. The amplifier operates at a supply voltage of less than 0.5 V, performing input transconductance almost equal to a gate transconductance and relatively high voltage gain without the need for gain boosting. The circuit was designed and simulated using a standard 0.18-µm CMOS n-well process. The low-frequency gain of the amplifier was 56 dB, the unity gain bandwidth was approximately 3.2 MHz, the spot noise was 100 nV/√Hz at 100 kHz and the current consumption was 90 μΑ. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.