Lecture

Current sources, Mirrors

& current steering
7.4. IC Biasing – Current Sources, Current Mirrors, and
Current-Steering Circuits

• Biasing in integrated-circuit design is based on the use of constant-current

sources.

• On an IC chip with a number of amplifier stages, a constant dc current

(reference current) is generated at one location and is then replicated at
various other locations for biasing.
• This is known as current steering.

• This approach has the advantage that the effort expended on generating a
predictable and stable reference current need not be repeated.
 BASIC PRINCIPLE
The current mirrors uses the principle that if
the gate –source potential of two identical
MOS transistors are equal then the current
flown through their Drain terminals should
be the same

NMOS current mirrors are used as

current sinks and PMOS current mirrors
are used as current sources

There is variety of current mirror circuits

available, each of them having their own
advantages and applications
For proper operation,
the output terminal,
that is, the drain of
Q2, must be
connected to a circuit
that ensures that Q2
operates in
The Basic MOSFET Current Source: Transfer Ratio

𝑻𝒉𝒖𝒔 𝑰 𝑶 =
𝑰 𝑹𝑬𝑭 ( 𝑾
𝑳 )
𝟐

(𝑾
𝑳 ) 𝟏
Example: Current Scaling

Can you guess the values of

MOS current mirrors can also scale IREF up or down (I1 = 0.2mA, I2 = 0.5mA).
8
Basic concept of current source & sink
PMOS Source
NMOS –Sinks
Effect of
To ensure that is saturated, the circuit to which
the drain of is to be connected must establish a
drain voltage that satisfies the relationship

channel-length modulation can have a significant

effect on the operation of the current source.

As increases the Will also increase according to

the incremental resistance
MOS Current-steering circuits
As mentioned earlier, once a constant current has been generated, it can be replicated to
provide dc bias or load currents for the various amplifier stages in an IC.

Q1, Q2 and Q3 FORMS

Determine TWO OUTPUT CURRENT
Reference current MIRRORS

Circuit

Circuit
To ensure operation in the
saturation region, the voltages
at the drains of Q2 and Q3 are
constrained as
current is fed to the input side of a
current mirror formed by PMOS
transistors and This mirror provides

Amplifier
circuit
Amplifier
circuit

while Q2 pulls its current I2, from a circuit , Q5 pushes its current I5 into a circuit . Thus
Q5 is appropriately called a current source, whereas Q2 should more properly be called a
current sink.
BJT-CURRENT
MIRRORS
• The basic BJT current mirror is shown

• It works in a fashion very similar to the MOS

mirror. However, with two important
differences:
• The non-zero base current of the BJT (or,
equivalently, the finite β ) causes an error in the
current transfer ratio of the BJT mirror .
• The current transfer ratio is determined by the
relative areas of the emitter-based junctions of Q1
and Q2.

Recall MOS
Mirror
Case 1: β sufficiently high that we can neglect the base currents

To obtain a current transfer ratio other than unity, say m, we

simply arrange that the area of the EBJ of Q2 is m times
that of Q1 In this case
 𝑰𝑪
𝜶 ≅ 𝟏; 𝑰 𝑬 =
𝜶

𝑰 𝑬 ≅ 𝑰 𝑪 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝑩 ≈ 𝟎

𝑺𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑰 𝑬 =𝑰 𝑪 + 𝑰 𝑩
Case 2: the effect of finite transistor β on the current transfer ratio

Taking both the finite β and the finite into account, we

can express the output current of a BJT mirror with a
nominal current transfer ratio m as
Summary
 Source
BJT –Current Steering

Two parallel transistors so

double current

Sink
LECTURE
 Unity transfer ratio mean m=1

=1.02 mA

𝑉 𝐴 2 100
𝑅 𝑂=𝑟 02= = −3 ≈ 100 𝐾 Ω
𝐼0 10
BJT Current Mirror……Cont
Current-Mirror Circuits with
Improved Performance
 Introduction
:Two performance parameters need to be addressed:
• The accuracy of the current transfer ratio suffers particularly from the finite β of the
BJT.

• The output resistance, which in the simple circuits is limited to of the MOSFET and the
BJT

• Improvements can be incorporated by following means:

• Cascode MOS Mirror
• Previous sections demonstrate the cascoding of transistors may be used to increase
gain and acquire “better” performance.
• A Bipolar Mirror with Base-Current Compensation
• Base-current compensation may be used to eliminate the effect of bias current on
mirror operation. In other words, how may its operation be made more like the
MOS implementation.
Cascoding
Figure shows the basic cascode current mirror. Observe
that in addition to the diode connected transistor Q1,
which forms the basic mirror Q1–Q2, another diode-
connected transistor, Q4, is used to provide a suitable bias
voltage for the gate of the cascode transistor Q3.

To determine the output resistance of the cascode mirror

at the drain of Q3, we assume that the voltages across Q1
and Q4 are constant, and thus the signal voltages at the
gates of Q2 and Q3 will be zero.

Thus Ro will be that of the cascode current source formed

𝑉 𝐷𝑆 =𝑉 𝐺𝑆 − 𝑉 𝑡
by Q2 and Q3,

𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝐺𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑉 𝐺 3 𝑖𝑠=2 𝑉 𝐺𝑆 =2 𝑉 𝑂𝑉 +2 𝑉 𝑡

𝑉 𝐷𝑆 =2𝑉 𝑂𝑉 + 2𝑉 𝑡 −𝑉 𝑡
A Bipolar Mirror with Base-Current Compensation

which means that the error due to finite has been reduced from in the simple mirror to a
tremendous improvement. Unfortunately, however, the output resistance remains approximately
equal to that of the simple mirror, namely
Still the same
The Wilson Current Mirror
A simple modification of the basic bipolar mirror results in both reducing the β dependence and
increasing the output resistance. The resulting circuit, known as the Wilson mirror
Calculations
The Widlar Current Source
It differs from the basic current mirror circuit in an important
way: A resistor RE is included in the emitter lead of Q2.
Neglecting base currents we can write

where we have assumed that Q1 and Q2 are

matched devices. Combining Eqs.

But

The Widlar current source provides an area-efficient

way to implement a low-valued constant-current
source that also has a high output resistance
If you want very
small output
current , then
the resistance
required will be
very large
 Some Useful Transistor Pairings
• The cascode configuration studied in Section 7.3 combines CS and CG
MOS transistors (CE and CB bipolar transistors) to great advantage.

• The key to the superior performance of the resulting combination is that the
transistor pairing is done in a way that maximizes the advantages and
minimizes the shortcomings of each of the two individual configurations.

• In this section we present a number of other such transistor pairings. In

each case the transistor pair can be thought of as a compound device; thus
the resulting amplifier may be considered as a single stage.
 Some Useful Transistor Pairings

1. The CC–CE, CD–CS, and CD–CE

Configurations

2. The CC–CB and CD–CG Configurations

1. The CC–CE Configurations

Figure shows an amplifier formed by cascading a common-

collector (emitter follower) transistor with a common-emitter
transistor

This circuit has two main advantages over the CE amplifier.

• First, the emitter follower increases the input resistance by

a factor equal to As a result, the overall voltage gain is
increased, especially if the resistance of the signal source is
large.

• Second, the CC–CE amplifier can exhibit much wider

bandwidth than that obtained with the CE amplifier.
1. The CD–CS Configurations
The MOS counterpart of the CC–CE
amplifier, namely, the CD–CS
configuration, is shown.

Here, the CS amplifier alone has an

infinite input resistance,

• The sole purpose for adding the

source-follower stage is to increase
the amplifier bandwidth,
1. The CC–CE Configurations

Fig. shows the BiCMOS version of this

circuit type.

• Compared to the bipolar circuit ,

the BiCMOS circuit has an infinite
input resistance.

• Compared to the MOS circuit , the

BiCMOS circuit typically has a
higher
1. The CC–CE Configurations (Variation )
The Darlington Configuration
It can be thought of as a variation of the CC–CE circuit with the collector
of connected to that of

Alternatively, the Darlington pair can be thought of as a composite

transistor with It can therefore be used to implement a high-performance
voltage follower

Note that in this application the circuit

can be considered as the cascade
connection of two common-collector
transistors (i.e., a CC–CC
Since the transistor β depends on the dc bias
configuration).
current, it is possible that will be operating at a
very low β, rendering the β-multiplication effect
of the Darlington pair rather ineffective. A
simple solution to this problem is to provide a
bias current for
The CC–CB and CD–CG
Configurations
Cascading an emitter follower with a common-
base amplifier, results in a circuit with a low-
frequency gain approximately equal to that of
the CB but with
the problem of the low input resistance of the CB
solved by the buffering action of the CC stage.

It will be shown in Chapter 9 that this circuit

exhibits wider bandwidth than that obtained
with a CE amplifier of the same gain

Note that the biasing current sources ensure that each of and is operating at a bias
current I. We are not showing, however, how the dc voltage at the base of is set or the
circuit that determines the dc voltage at the collector of : Both issues are usually looked
after in the larger circuit of which the CC–CB amplifier is a part.
 An interesting version of the CC–CB
configuration is shown in Fig.on left

Here the CB stage is implemented with a pnp

transistor.

Although only one current source is now

needed, observe that we also need to establish
an appropriate bias voltage at the base of

The MOSFET version of the

circuit is the CD–CG amplifier
Assignment No 2 (CLO-1)
(Submission date 10th October 2022)
• Do all examples and exercise starting from page
542 to page 552) of your text book
“Microelectronics Circuits” 6th edition by Sedra &
Smith

• You are also given an assignment( Assignment 3)

to be submitted on 5th Oct. The asc. Files have
been emailed to all three section.
We observe that using the Widlar circuit allows the
generation of a small constant current using relatively
small resistors

for both the transistors not same

Now ; and

0.115 V less then Q1

Out put Resistance
The Darlington Configuration
In one package

(a) The Darlington configuration; (b) voltage follower using the Darlington configuration; (c) the Darlington
follower with a bias current I supplied to Q1 to ensure that its β remains high.