A 0.9 V, High-Speed, Low-Power Tunable Gain Current Mirror

Authors: Hassan Faraji Baghtash

Abstract:

A high-speed current mirror with low-power method of adjusting current gain is presented. The current mirror provides continuous gain adjustment; yet, its gain can simply be programmed digitally, as well. The structure features the ever interesting merits of linear-in-dB gain control scheme and low power/voltage operation. The performance of proposed structure is verified through the simulation in TSMC 0.18 µm CMOS Technology. The proposed tunable gain current mirror structure draws only 18 µW from 0.9 V power supply and can operate at high frequencies up to 550 MHz in the worst case condition of maximum gain setting.

Keywords: Current mirror, current mode, low power, low voltage, tunable circuit, variable current amplifier.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2021735

References:

[1] Fallah, M. and MiarNaimi, H. “A novel low voltage, low power and high gain operational amplifier using negative resistance and self cascode transistors”, IJE TRANSACTIONS C: Aspects, Vol. 26, No. 3 (March 2013), 303-308.
[2] Babaei Sedaghat, S., Karimi, G. and Banitalebi, R. “A low voltage full-band folded cascoded UWB LNA with feedback topology”, IJE TRANSACTIONS A: Basics, Vol. 28, No. 1 (January 2015), 66-73.
[3] Singh, S. V., Tomar, R. S. and Chauhan, D. S. “A new trans-admittance-mode biquad filter suitable for low voltage operation”, IJE TRANSACTIONS C: Aspects, Vol. 28, No. 12 (December 2015), 1738-1745.
[4] J. Ramirez-Angulo, C. Durbha, A. J. Lopez-Martin, and R. G. Carvajal, "Highly linear wide tuning range CMOS transconductor operating in moderate inversion", IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37512), 2004, pp. I-805-8 Vol.1, doi: 10.1109/ISCAS.2004.1328317
[5] A. Zeki and A. Toker, "Tunable linear CMOS current mirror", Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 261-269, 2007.
[6] J. Ramırez-Angulo, S. R. S. Garimella, A. J. López-Martın, and R. G. Carvajal, "Gain programmable current mirrors based on current steering", Electronics Letters, vol. 42, no. 10, p. 559, 2006.
[7] C. Laoudias and C. Psychalinos, "Low-voltage CMOS adjustable current mirror", Electronics Letters, vol. 46, no. 2, p. 124, 2010.
[8] Z. Wang and W. Guggenbühl, "Adjustable bidirectional MOS current mirror/amplifier", Electronics Letters, vol. 25, no. 10, pp. 673-675, 1989.
[9] A. K. Gupta, J. W. Haslett, and F. N. Trofimenkoff, "A wide dynamic range continuously adjustable CMOS current mirror", IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 31, no. 8, pp. 1208-1213, 1996.
[10] Asemani, M., Ardeshir, G. and Razmjooei, D., “Improving linearity of cmos variable-gain amplifier using third-order intermodulation cancellation mechanism and intermodulation distortion sinking techniques”, IJE TRANSACTIONS B: Applications, Vol. 30, No. 2 (February 2017), 192-198.
[11] B. Sedighi and M. Sharif Bakhtiar, “Variable gain current mirror for high-speed applications”, IEICE Electronics Express, vol. 4, no. 8, pp. 277–281, 2007.