An area-efficient 1.96 nA 0.55 V 96 ppm/°C self-biased current reference using active resistor temperature coefficient compensation

Abstract

This paper presents a simple scheme for a nano-ampere supply and temperature-stabilized current reference based on the well-known Beta multiplier circuit. Under the control of the proposed active resistor temperature coefficient compensation (TCC) circuit, the threshold voltage of the traditional active resistor in the triode region can be reduced and the temperature coefficient (TC) can be adjusted. The proposed current reference circuit was implemented using standard VTH (SVT) MOS devices and included active resistors (MΩ) to achieve area efficiency. The power consumption of the current reference generator designed using a 180 nm CMOS process was 9.2 nW at a supply voltage of 0.55 V. Monte-Carlo simulation results showed that the reference current was 1.96nA, temperature coefficient was 96 ppm/°C over a temperature range of 0–100 °C, and line sensitivity was 0.2 %/V for supply voltages ranging from 0.55 to 1.8 V. The active area was only 0.003 mm2.