Low voltage base current cancellation circuit

A low voltage base current cancellation circuit is proposed. It is useful in minimising the non-linearity due to base current in Complementary to Absolute Temperature current references and temperature independent current references and in improving the accuracy of bipolar transistor current mirrors. In today’s deep submicron CMOS technologies, parasitic bipolar transistors have a low current gain factor (β) and their base current cannot be neglected which adversely impacts the accuracy of the generated reference currents. By substantially eliminating the base current component, the accuracy of the generated reference current is improved significantly. The proposed base current cancellation circuit has been designed in 16nm FinFet technology for a wide temperature range of −40°C to 150°C and a supply voltage range of 1.8V ± 10%. The simulation results show that the proposed base current cancellation circuit significantly reduces the non-linearity in the Complementary to Absolute Temperature reference current.