Understanding Wilson current mirror via the negative feedback approach

Author

Mahattanakul, Jirayuth ; Pookaiyaudom, Sitthichai ; Toumazou, Chris

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., Mahanakorn Univ., Bangkok, Thailand

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

6-9 May 2001

Firstpage

532

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive study of a negative feedback mechanism in the bipolar Wilson current mirror, which is one of the most popular current mirrors used in electronic circuit designs. Although the operation of the Wilson current mirror has been covered in most microelectronic circuit design textbooks, its unusual negative feedback mechanism is still largely obscure. As a result, attempts to calculate the output resistance of the Wilson current mirror using classical negative feedback analysis have usually given the answer that is inconsistent with the correct answers obtained from direct analysis. We believe that this is probably the main reason why the negative feedback analysis of the Wilson current mirror is mostly ignored in the literature. In this paper, we aim to disclose the hidden subtleties of the Wilson current mirror by shedding a new light on its dual-loop negative feedback operation. It is shown in the paper that by doing so, we will be able to apply the negative feedback theory to the Wilson current mirror and correctly calculate its current gain and port resistances

Keywords

circuit feedback; current mirrors; equivalent circuits; Wilson current mirror; current gain; dual-loop negative feedback operation; output resistance; port resistances; Current measurement; Design engineering; Electrical resistance measurement; Electronic circuits; Gain measurement; Immune system; Mirrors; Modems; Negative feedback; Performance gain;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems, 2001. ISCAS 2001. The 2001 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Sydney, NSW

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6685-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCAS.2001.921910

Filename

921910