CA1149458A - Low voltage current mirror - Google Patents
Low voltage current mirrorInfo
- Publication number
- CA1149458A CA1149458A CA000373155A CA373155A CA1149458A CA 1149458 A CA1149458 A CA 1149458A CA 000373155 A CA000373155 A CA 000373155A CA 373155 A CA373155 A CA 373155A CA 1149458 A CA1149458 A CA 1149458A
- Authority
- CA
- Canada
- Prior art keywords
- current
- transistors
- current mirror
- source
- coupled
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Expired
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- Control Of Electrical Variables (AREA)
Abstract
Abstract A highly accurate current mirror for IC implementation is comprised of low beta transistors and operates on a low supply voltage by utilizing a bias network with a balance sensing feedback network to control the bias voltage. The output current of one of the mirror transistors is compared with the reference current and the level of the current is then forced to equal the reference by means of the bias voltage adjustment.
Description
94~8 LOW VOLTAGE CURRENT MIRROR
Background of the Invention This invention relates to the field of current mirror circuits and, more particularly, to the provision of an accurate current mirror operating on a minimum supply voltage.
Current mirrors are well known in the art as a means for supplying a known current as, for example, in biasing transistor gain stages. While a "current source" may be as simple as a resistor, current mirrors have become increas-ingly used for several reasons. First, they offer improved circuit performance and more accurate current control than do resistors, and may also require less area on an integrated circuit chip. The most conventional and simple circuit for a current mirror requires high beta transistors, or at least transistors having consistent values of beta, in order to approach the desired correlation between output and reference current. In IC processing, this is, of course, difficult and thus expensive as beta values tend to have a wide range of values and restriction of the usable range of values makes for a low IC production yield.
More complicated current mirror circuits have been devised which are less sensitive to beta variations. one such is known as the Wilson current mirror which decreases the sensitivity to beta value by means of an additional 9 ~58 buffer transistor which supplies the base current for the ~irror circuit transistors without significantly disturbing the reference current. In such a circuit, however, a high supply voltage is required, due to the series-connected emitter-base juntions. This.limitation precludes the use of such a circuit in many of today's miniature electronic devices such as hearing aides, pagers, etc.
Summary of the Invention It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a highly accurate current mirror circuit for use with low voltage supplies.
It is a particular object to provide such a circuit which is highly independent of the beta values in an inte-grated circuit application.
These objects and others which will become apparent are provided in a current mirror circuit wherein the two matched transistor devices are biased by an automatically controlled biasing network. A sensing circuit compares the current in one of the transistors with the reference current and adjusts the biasing voltage, forcing the collector current of that transistor to be equal to the reference current. In this mirror circuit, there are no bias paths containing more than one diode drop, thus the circuit can operate with supply voltages ranging down to l.0 volts.
More particularly, there is provided:
A current mirror circuit usable with a single cell voltage supply and comprising:
a voltage supply;
a reference voltage source;
first and second transistors of the same conductivity type with bases coupled together, the second transistor being coupled between the voltage supply and the reference voltage source and supplying an output current:
a first current reference source coupled to the first transistor means;
a resistor coupled to the voltage supply:
-2a-diode means coupled between the resistor and the bases of the first and second transistors;
an adjustable current source coupled between the bases of the first and second transistors and the reference voltage source; and a third transistor of the said conductivity type coupled between the resistor and the reference voltage source for forcing the output current to be a direct function of the reference current provided by the first current reference source.
1~ Brief Description of the Drawing Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional prior art current mirror circuit.
Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a Wilson prior art current mirror circuit.
Fig. 3 is a schematic drawing of the current mirror circuit of the present invention.
9~S8 Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of an application of the circuit of Fig. 3.
Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment Fig. l shows a schematic diagram of a typical current mirror circuit as is well known in the art, and is given here to serve as a reference only. It consists of matched transistors Ql, Q2 and a current reference source IREF. Ql is diode-connected and is coupled to the reference current.
The collector current of Q2 (IC2) is the output current of the circuit. Since the emitter current in a bipolar trans-istor is a function of the emitter-base junction saturation current density, the area of that junction, electronic charge, the base-emitter voltage, Boltzmann's constant, and the absolute temperature, it is apparent that, for transis-tors of the same conductivity type on one IC chip, the only variable between emitter currents is the emitter-base junc-tion area; i.e., IE2 = NIEl, where N is the ratio of the two emitter-base junction areas.
IBl IE1/(s + l)~ IB2 = NIEl/(~ + l) and = IC/IB, then IREF = ICl + IBl + IB2 ~IBl + IBl Bl' C2 ~IB2 = ~NIBl Therefore, C2 = ~NIBl = N
REF ~IBl + IBl + NIBl l + (N+l)/~
Thus IC2 = NIREF/~l + (N+l)/~], and only for large values of beta does IC2 closely approximate NIREFand the error increases as N increases.
In the current mirror of Fig. 2, commonly known as the Wilson current mirror, IoUT N
REF l + (N+l) B(B+l) the variation of IC2 with beta has been reduced by the buffering action of Q3, (replacing the Ql diode connection with the Q3 base-emitter junction) which supplies the base 3 }S8 current for Ql and Q2 without significantly disturbing the reference circuit. However, since the two diode drops are in series, the use of this mirror structure requires a supply voltage of at least 2 volts, which is more than is available in many miniature electronic devices.
The circuit of the present invention as shown in the preferred embodiment of Fig. 3, provides the advantages of both the two previously described circuits and the disadvan-tages of neither; i.e., it provides the same accuracy as the latter circuit with the low voltage requirement of the former.
Again, transistors Ql and Q2 (within dashed line 10) are two matched devices, i.e. having the same conductivity type and characteristics, preferably on a single chip. Both Ql and Q2 are initially biased by a biasing network 12 consisting of R, Q4 and a current source IBIAS. Ql is coupled to the reference source IREF as before. A balance sensing circuit 14 such as transistor Q5, compares ICl and IREF and adjusts the mirror circuit bias voltage until the two currents are equal. Since Ql and Q2 have matching characteristics, IC2 is forced to equal NIREF, N being the ratio of the two base-emitter junction areas.
More specifically, IBIAS establishes a voltage drop across the combination of the diode-connected transistor Q4 and the resistor R that biases the base-emitter junctions of transistors Ql, Q2. The bias network parameters, namely the value of the current source IBIAS~ the value of R and the voltage drop across Q4 at the bias current level are selected so that, if transistors Ql and Q2 require no base current (if they had infinite beta), the base to emitter voltage of transistors Ql, Q2 would correspond to the value needed to establish an emitter current of IREF in Ql and NIREF in Q2.
For finite values of transistor beta, transistors Ql, Q2 will draw base current from the current source IBIAS~
with the result that less current will flow through Q4 and resistor R. In consequence,the collector current of Ql will be less than IREF. Transistor Q5 serves to measure this imbalance between the mirror currents,the excess current is S the base current for Q5, which is multiplied by the beta of Q5 and applied to the resistor R of the bias network 12.
The current through R that is applied by transistor Q5 serves to increase the base-emitter voltage of Ql and Q2, and raises the value of the mirror current until it very closely approximates the value of the reference current. It can be shown then that, IC2 = N
IREF 1 + ( ~(~ + 1) It will be noted that this is the same expression given above for the Wilson current mirror.
Fig. 4 shows a typical use of a current mirror in an IC
design where the mirror circuit of Fig. 3 is used to transfer a current reference level from an NPN transistor to a series of PNP transistors. With prior art circuits, separate current reference circuits would have been required for biasing various chains of interconnected current source transistors due to the beta sensitivity problem.
In this application, a current reference at a terminal 16, which is used in Circuit No. 1 is also needed in Circuit No. 2. As may be seen in Fig. 4, the Q2 of Fig. 3 may actually be any desired number of transistors Q2, Q2', etc.
The current sources supplying IREF and IBIAs are here shown as PNP transistors Q6 and Q7, respectively, but Q6 functions with Q8 as a conventional current mirror (similar to that of Fig. 1), using the current reference from terminal 16. IREF may be made any desired fraction of IC8 by ratioing the areas of Q6 and Q8, or by the use of Q9 and 9~S8 R2, diverting a portion of IC8 from the base-emitter junc-tion of Q8 and thus reducing IREF accordingly (this control including ON-OFF type control). This current diversion may be accomplished via a control terminal 18. The current in each individual current source transistor is accurately controlled and separate current reference circuits are no longer required. The elimination of the extra reference circuits results in significant savings in IC chip area and, therefore, in IC cost.
Thus, there has been shown and described a current mir-ror circuit for integrated circuit application particularly which will provide highly accurate reference currents with voltage supplies lower than 2 volts. While specific cir-cuits and transistors have been shown as preferred, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that other choices of transistors and arrangements thereof are possible and it is intended to cover all such as fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Background of the Invention This invention relates to the field of current mirror circuits and, more particularly, to the provision of an accurate current mirror operating on a minimum supply voltage.
Current mirrors are well known in the art as a means for supplying a known current as, for example, in biasing transistor gain stages. While a "current source" may be as simple as a resistor, current mirrors have become increas-ingly used for several reasons. First, they offer improved circuit performance and more accurate current control than do resistors, and may also require less area on an integrated circuit chip. The most conventional and simple circuit for a current mirror requires high beta transistors, or at least transistors having consistent values of beta, in order to approach the desired correlation between output and reference current. In IC processing, this is, of course, difficult and thus expensive as beta values tend to have a wide range of values and restriction of the usable range of values makes for a low IC production yield.
More complicated current mirror circuits have been devised which are less sensitive to beta variations. one such is known as the Wilson current mirror which decreases the sensitivity to beta value by means of an additional 9 ~58 buffer transistor which supplies the base current for the ~irror circuit transistors without significantly disturbing the reference current. In such a circuit, however, a high supply voltage is required, due to the series-connected emitter-base juntions. This.limitation precludes the use of such a circuit in many of today's miniature electronic devices such as hearing aides, pagers, etc.
Summary of the Invention It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a highly accurate current mirror circuit for use with low voltage supplies.
It is a particular object to provide such a circuit which is highly independent of the beta values in an inte-grated circuit application.
These objects and others which will become apparent are provided in a current mirror circuit wherein the two matched transistor devices are biased by an automatically controlled biasing network. A sensing circuit compares the current in one of the transistors with the reference current and adjusts the biasing voltage, forcing the collector current of that transistor to be equal to the reference current. In this mirror circuit, there are no bias paths containing more than one diode drop, thus the circuit can operate with supply voltages ranging down to l.0 volts.
More particularly, there is provided:
A current mirror circuit usable with a single cell voltage supply and comprising:
a voltage supply;
a reference voltage source;
first and second transistors of the same conductivity type with bases coupled together, the second transistor being coupled between the voltage supply and the reference voltage source and supplying an output current:
a first current reference source coupled to the first transistor means;
a resistor coupled to the voltage supply:
-2a-diode means coupled between the resistor and the bases of the first and second transistors;
an adjustable current source coupled between the bases of the first and second transistors and the reference voltage source; and a third transistor of the said conductivity type coupled between the resistor and the reference voltage source for forcing the output current to be a direct function of the reference current provided by the first current reference source.
1~ Brief Description of the Drawing Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional prior art current mirror circuit.
Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a Wilson prior art current mirror circuit.
Fig. 3 is a schematic drawing of the current mirror circuit of the present invention.
9~S8 Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of an application of the circuit of Fig. 3.
Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment Fig. l shows a schematic diagram of a typical current mirror circuit as is well known in the art, and is given here to serve as a reference only. It consists of matched transistors Ql, Q2 and a current reference source IREF. Ql is diode-connected and is coupled to the reference current.
The collector current of Q2 (IC2) is the output current of the circuit. Since the emitter current in a bipolar trans-istor is a function of the emitter-base junction saturation current density, the area of that junction, electronic charge, the base-emitter voltage, Boltzmann's constant, and the absolute temperature, it is apparent that, for transis-tors of the same conductivity type on one IC chip, the only variable between emitter currents is the emitter-base junc-tion area; i.e., IE2 = NIEl, where N is the ratio of the two emitter-base junction areas.
IBl IE1/(s + l)~ IB2 = NIEl/(~ + l) and = IC/IB, then IREF = ICl + IBl + IB2 ~IBl + IBl Bl' C2 ~IB2 = ~NIBl Therefore, C2 = ~NIBl = N
REF ~IBl + IBl + NIBl l + (N+l)/~
Thus IC2 = NIREF/~l + (N+l)/~], and only for large values of beta does IC2 closely approximate NIREFand the error increases as N increases.
In the current mirror of Fig. 2, commonly known as the Wilson current mirror, IoUT N
REF l + (N+l) B(B+l) the variation of IC2 with beta has been reduced by the buffering action of Q3, (replacing the Ql diode connection with the Q3 base-emitter junction) which supplies the base 3 }S8 current for Ql and Q2 without significantly disturbing the reference circuit. However, since the two diode drops are in series, the use of this mirror structure requires a supply voltage of at least 2 volts, which is more than is available in many miniature electronic devices.
The circuit of the present invention as shown in the preferred embodiment of Fig. 3, provides the advantages of both the two previously described circuits and the disadvan-tages of neither; i.e., it provides the same accuracy as the latter circuit with the low voltage requirement of the former.
Again, transistors Ql and Q2 (within dashed line 10) are two matched devices, i.e. having the same conductivity type and characteristics, preferably on a single chip. Both Ql and Q2 are initially biased by a biasing network 12 consisting of R, Q4 and a current source IBIAS. Ql is coupled to the reference source IREF as before. A balance sensing circuit 14 such as transistor Q5, compares ICl and IREF and adjusts the mirror circuit bias voltage until the two currents are equal. Since Ql and Q2 have matching characteristics, IC2 is forced to equal NIREF, N being the ratio of the two base-emitter junction areas.
More specifically, IBIAS establishes a voltage drop across the combination of the diode-connected transistor Q4 and the resistor R that biases the base-emitter junctions of transistors Ql, Q2. The bias network parameters, namely the value of the current source IBIAS~ the value of R and the voltage drop across Q4 at the bias current level are selected so that, if transistors Ql and Q2 require no base current (if they had infinite beta), the base to emitter voltage of transistors Ql, Q2 would correspond to the value needed to establish an emitter current of IREF in Ql and NIREF in Q2.
For finite values of transistor beta, transistors Ql, Q2 will draw base current from the current source IBIAS~
with the result that less current will flow through Q4 and resistor R. In consequence,the collector current of Ql will be less than IREF. Transistor Q5 serves to measure this imbalance between the mirror currents,the excess current is S the base current for Q5, which is multiplied by the beta of Q5 and applied to the resistor R of the bias network 12.
The current through R that is applied by transistor Q5 serves to increase the base-emitter voltage of Ql and Q2, and raises the value of the mirror current until it very closely approximates the value of the reference current. It can be shown then that, IC2 = N
IREF 1 + ( ~(~ + 1) It will be noted that this is the same expression given above for the Wilson current mirror.
Fig. 4 shows a typical use of a current mirror in an IC
design where the mirror circuit of Fig. 3 is used to transfer a current reference level from an NPN transistor to a series of PNP transistors. With prior art circuits, separate current reference circuits would have been required for biasing various chains of interconnected current source transistors due to the beta sensitivity problem.
In this application, a current reference at a terminal 16, which is used in Circuit No. 1 is also needed in Circuit No. 2. As may be seen in Fig. 4, the Q2 of Fig. 3 may actually be any desired number of transistors Q2, Q2', etc.
The current sources supplying IREF and IBIAs are here shown as PNP transistors Q6 and Q7, respectively, but Q6 functions with Q8 as a conventional current mirror (similar to that of Fig. 1), using the current reference from terminal 16. IREF may be made any desired fraction of IC8 by ratioing the areas of Q6 and Q8, or by the use of Q9 and 9~S8 R2, diverting a portion of IC8 from the base-emitter junc-tion of Q8 and thus reducing IREF accordingly (this control including ON-OFF type control). This current diversion may be accomplished via a control terminal 18. The current in each individual current source transistor is accurately controlled and separate current reference circuits are no longer required. The elimination of the extra reference circuits results in significant savings in IC chip area and, therefore, in IC cost.
Thus, there has been shown and described a current mir-ror circuit for integrated circuit application particularly which will provide highly accurate reference currents with voltage supplies lower than 2 volts. While specific cir-cuits and transistors have been shown as preferred, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that other choices of transistors and arrangements thereof are possible and it is intended to cover all such as fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Claims (7)
1. A current mirror circuit usable with a single cell voltage supply and comprising:
a voltage supply;
a reference voltage source;
first and second transistors of the same conductivity type with bases coupled together, the second transistor being coupled between the voltage supply and the reference voltage source and supplying an output current:
a first current reference source coupled to the first transistor means;
a resistor coupled to the voltage supply;
diode means coupled between the resistor and the bases of the first and second transistors;
an adjustable current source coupled between the bases of the first and second transistors and the reference voltage source; and a third transistor of the said conductivity type coupled between the resistor and the reference voltage source for forcing the output current to be a direct function of the reference current provided by the first current reference source.
a voltage supply;
a reference voltage source;
first and second transistors of the same conductivity type with bases coupled together, the second transistor being coupled between the voltage supply and the reference voltage source and supplying an output current:
a first current reference source coupled to the first transistor means;
a resistor coupled to the voltage supply;
diode means coupled between the resistor and the bases of the first and second transistors;
an adjustable current source coupled between the bases of the first and second transistors and the reference voltage source; and a third transistor of the said conductivity type coupled between the resistor and the reference voltage source for forcing the output current to be a direct function of the reference current provided by the first current reference source.
2. A current mirror circuit in accordance with claim 1 wherein the diode means is a fourth, diode-connected transistor.
3. A current mirror circuit in accordance with claim 1, wherein the first, second and third transistor means are PNP
transistors.
transistors.
4. A current mirror circuit in accordance with claim 1 wherein the first current reference source includes a second current mirror and a second current reference source coupled to the second current mirror.
5. A current mirror circuit in accordance with claim 4 wherein the first current reference source also includes control means for varying the current of the first current reference source with respect to the current of the second current reference source.
6. A current mirror circuit in accordance with claim 1 wherein the second transistor means comprises a plurality of transistors.
7. A current mirror circuit in accordance with claim 4 wherein the second current reference source includes transistors of said same conductivity type.
Priority Applications (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000373155A CA1149458A (en) | 1981-03-17 | 1981-03-17 | Low voltage current mirror |
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000373155A CA1149458A (en) | 1981-03-17 | 1981-03-17 | Low voltage current mirror |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA1149458A true CA1149458A (en) | 1983-07-05 |
Family
ID=4119466
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA000373155A Expired CA1149458A (en) | 1981-03-17 | 1981-03-17 | Low voltage current mirror |
Country Status (1)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| CA (1) | CA1149458A (en) |
-
1981
- 1981-03-17 CA CA000373155A patent/CA1149458A/en not_active Expired
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Legal Events
| Date | Code | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| MKEX | Expiry |