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CMOS voltage reference based on threshold voltage and thermal voltage

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Abstract

A fully CMOS based voltage reference circuit is presented in this paper. The voltage reference circuit uses the difference between gate-to-source voltages of two MOSFETs operating in the weak-inversion region to generate the voltage with positive temperature coefficient. The reference voltage can be obtained by combining this voltage difference and the extracted threshold voltage of a saturated MOSFET which has a negative temperature coefficient. This circuit, implemented in a standard 0.35-μm CMOS process, provides a nominal reference voltage of 1.361 V at 2-V supply voltage. Experimental results show that the temperature coefficient is 36.7 ppm/°C in the range from −20 to 100°C. It occupies 0.039 mm2 of active area and dissipates 82 μW at room temperature. With a 0.5-μF load capacitor, the measured noise density at 100 Hz and 100 kHz is 3.6 and \( 2 5\,{\text{nV}}/\sqrt {\text{Hz}} , \) respectively.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the National Chip Implementation Center of Taiwan for supporting the chip fabrication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Analog Integrated Circuit Laboratory, Department of Communication Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, 300, Taiwan, ROC

    Tien-Yu Lo & Chung-Chih Hung

  2. Analog VLSI Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Mohammed Ismail

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  1. Tien-Yu Lo
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  2. Chung-Chih Hung
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  3. Mohammed Ismail
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Correspondence to Chung-Chih Hung.

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Lo, TY., Hung, CC. & Ismail, M. CMOS voltage reference based on threshold voltage and thermal voltage. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 62, 9–15 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-009-9321-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-009-9321-y

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