High performance FGMOS-based low voltage current mirror

Current mirror (CM) is the basic building block in analog and mixed mode circuit design. For high performance analog circuit applications, the current transfer ratio, output impedance and output swing are the most important parameters to determine the performance of the current mirror. CM’s are important for analog integrated circuits because of their wide use as constant sources or active loads in amplifier stages. Their application is increasing continuously due to the developments in current-mode integrated circuit design. This paper describes a new Current Mirror proposed and optimized to provide high accuracy, very high impedance and output swing at very low voltages using floating gate MOSFET’s (FGMOS). The new mirror-High Performance Low Voltage Current Mirror (HPLVCM)based on FGMOS has output current range of ~2μA to 500μA, high output impedance (785.4GΩ at 100μA and 64M Ω at 500μA), comparatively high bandwidth (631MHz) and low input compliance voltage (0.18V at 50μA and 0.45V at 500μA input current). The new design has been verified using PSpice simulations for 0.5μm CMOS technology at a supply voltage of ±0.75V. The error in current transfer is observed to be less than ±0.1%.