A compact low-power supply-insensitive CMOS current reference

A simple low-power current reference using dual-threshold MOS transistors is introduced. The area required for this reference is small and the sensitivity of the output current to the supply voltage is low. Simulation results show that an implementation of this current reference in a TSMC 0.18um CMOS process with a 1.8V power supply is constant to within ±1.25% over the temperature range of -10°C to 100°C. In this implementation, the active area is 86 μm², the power dissipation is 72μW, and the worst process corner nonlinearity due to temperature variations is bounded by ±4.16%.