1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of voltage reference circuits. In particular, the present invention relates to circuits and methods for providing a voltage reference that uses a metal-silicon Schottky diode for the Complementary proportional To Absolute Temperature (CTAT) voltage source that is added to a properly amplified PTAT voltage source to form a temperature stable voltage reference for low voltage applications.
2. Background and Related Art
The accuracy of circuits often depends on access to a stable bandgap voltage reference. A bandgap voltage reference is a voltage reference approximately equal to the bandgap potential (VG0) of the semiconductor at zero degrees Kelvin.
The bandgap voltage reference circuit is often configured by adding two voltages together: one that is inversely or Complementary proportional To Absolute Temperature (CTAT), and one that is Proportional To Absolute Temperature (PTAT). The CTAT voltage decreases approximately linearly with absolute temperature, whereas the PTAT voltage increases approximately linearly with absolute temperature.
The CTAT voltage source is typically the base-emitter voltage (VBE) of a diode-connected bipolar transistor.
A close approximation to this relationship is shown in the following Equation 1:
Where,
To form a PTAT voltage, the difference between the base-emitter voltage (VBE) of two bipolar transistors is used, where the current density is different for each bipolar transistor. As shown in
The curve depicted in
In order to form the bandgap voltage reference, the PTAT voltage (VPTAT, in this case ΔVBE) is multiplied by a constant G. The result is added to the CTAT voltage (VCTAT, in this case VBE) to obtain the output voltage VOUT. This is represented mathematically by the following Equation 3:
VOUT=VCTAT+G·VPTAT (3)
and also by the following Equation 4:
VOUT=VBE(J1)+G·[VBE(J1)−VBE(J2)] (4)
The constant G is chosen to make the slope of G•VPTAT versus temperature equal in magnitude but opposite in sign to the slope of VCTAT versus temperature. This yields a voltage VOUT which is substantially independent of temperature as depicted in
The current density J1 passing through bipolar transistor 801 is equal to the current I1 divided by its emitter area A1. The current density J2 passing through bipolar transistor 802 is equal to the current I2 divided by its emitter area A2. The voltage at the emitter terminal of bipolar transistor 801 (i.e., VBE(J1)) is provided to the positive input terminal of the amplifier 803. The voltage at the emitter terminal of bipolar transistor 802 (i.e., VBE(J2)) is provided to the negative input terminal of the amplifier 803. The amplifier 803 has gain G. Accordingly, a voltage of G•(VBE(J1)−VBE(J2)) is applied at the output terminal of the amplifier 803. The output voltage VOUT is obtained by summing 807 the output voltage of the amplifier 803 with the base-emitter voltage of the bipolar transistor 801.
The currents I1 and I2, and the emitter areas A1 and A2 are chosen such that the voltage VBE(J1) at the emitter terminal of bipolar transistor 801 is larger than the emitter voltage VBE(J2) at the emitter terminal of bipolar transistor 802 and such that the difference in base emitter voltages (i.e., VBE(J1) minus VBE(J2)) is significantly larger than the offset voltage of the amplifier 803.
The current sources 805 and 806 used to bias the respective bipolar transistors 801 and 802 are typically generated using the output voltage VOUT of the bandgap reference circuit 800. If the supply voltage does not affect the currents through either bipolar transistor, the output voltage is independent of the supply voltage as well as temperature for higher supply voltages.
In order to minimize the dependence of the output voltage VOUT on temperature, the bipolar transistors 801 and 802 should be carefully matched. Matching of devices is quite difficult. Minor and yet inevitable spatial process variations often cause some mismatch between common devices.
During the period when φ1 is high, a higher current I1 is passed through the bipolar transistor 901 creating a higher base-emitter voltage VBE(J1) which is sampled and stored on capacitor C1. J1 is the current density through the bipolar transistor 901 when the total current is I1. During the period when φ2 is high, a lower current I2 is placed through the bipolar transistor 902 generating a lower base-emitter voltage VBE(J2) which is sampled and stored on capacitor C2. Again, to generate the relationship described by Equation 4, the difference between these two voltages is multiplied by a specific gain G using an amplifier 903. The amplified voltage is then added to the higher VBE voltage. Once again, the amplifier gain G is chosen such that the resulting output voltage VOUT is a constant with respect to temperature.
Each of these conventional bandgap voltage reference circuits 800 and 900 are effective in generating a bandgap voltage reference that is approximately equal to the bandgap potential of the underlying semiconductor as long as the high supply voltage is sufficiently high for the amplifiers 803 and 903 to generate voltages below and approaching the bandgap potential (1.2 volts in the case of silicon). Accordingly, as supply voltages drop to and below 1.2 volts, the performance of circuits 800 and 900 will degrade. With lower voltage applications becoming more prevalent, voltage references that are lower than the bandgap potential of the semiconductor may be useful.
Accordingly, what would be advantageous are silicon-based voltage reference circuits that provide voltage references that are relatively independent of temperature and below the bandgap potential of silicon. It would especially be advantageous if such reference circuits may operate with lower supply voltages.
The principles of the present invention are directed towards silicon-based voltage reference circuits that, contrary to conventional silicon-based bandgap voltage reference circuits, generate a relatively temperature and power supply independent voltage references that are less than even the bandgap potential of silicon.
The silicon-based voltage reference circuit includes a metal-silicon Schottky diode. A current source supplies a current through the metal-silicon Schottky diode. In this configuration, the anode terminal of the Schottky diode is a Complementary proportional To Absolute Temperature (CTAT) voltage source. The anode terminal has a voltage at zero degrees Kelvin of approximately the barrier height of the metal-silicon Schottky diode, which is less than the bandgap potential for silicon for most selections of metal.
The voltage reference circuit also includes a Proportional To Absolute Temperature (PTAT) voltage source that generates a PTAT voltage that has a slope with temperature that is approximately equal to, but opposite in sign, to the CTAT voltage. This PTAT voltage may be generated in a variety of ways, conventional or otherwise. A summer adds the CTAT voltage to the PTAT voltage to generate the temperature stable reference voltage that is less than the bandgap voltage of silicon.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description that follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.
In order to describe the manner in which the above-recited and other advantages and features of the invention can be obtained, a more particular description of the invention briefly described above will be rendered by reference to specific embodiments thereof which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to be considered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will be described and explained with additional specificity and detail through the use of the accompanying drawings in which:
The principles of the present invention are directed towards silicon-based voltage reference circuits that, contrary to conventional silicon-based bandgap voltage reference circuits, generate temperature stable voltage references that are less than the bandgap potential of silicon, and that may operate with supply voltages that are less than the silicon bandgap potential.
The voltage reference circuit also includes a Proportional To Absolute Temperature (PTAT) voltage source 104 that generates a PTAT voltage that has a positive slope with temperature that is approximately equal to the negative slope with temperature of the CTAT voltage at the node terminal 103. The PTAT voltage 103 may be generated in a variety of ways. The principles of the present invention are not restricted to the manner in which the PTAT voltage is generated. A summer 105 adds the CTAT voltage to the PTAT voltage to generate the temperature stable reference voltage VOUT that is less than the bandgap voltage of silicon.
As previously mentioned, the PTAT voltage source 104 may be any mechanism for generating a PTAT voltage. However, for illustrative purposes, three examples of PTAT voltage sources will be described with respect to
Referring to
A capacitor 205C is configured to sample a voltage at the base-emitter terminal 203C of the bipolar transistor 201C during the first time period through switch 208C. A second capacitor 206C is configured to sample a voltage at the base-emitter terminal of the bipolar transistor 201C during the second time period through switch 209C. An amplifier 207C has a negative input terminal coupled to the second capacitor 206C so as to receive the voltage sampled by the second capacitor 206C, and a positive input terminal coupled to the first capacitor 205C so as to receive the voltage sampled by the first capacitor 205C. The voltage differential between the emitter voltages of the bipolar transistors sampled while experiencing different current densities is a PTAT voltage. The amplifier 207C amplifies this voltage as appropriate to generate another PTAT voltage that has a positive slope with temperature that is equal in magnitude to the slope with temperature of the CTAT voltage present at the anode terminal 103 of the first metal-silicon Schottky diode.
The current source 302 is specially configured as an alternating current source to supply a current through the metal-silicon Schottky diode 301 during a first time period (e.g., when clock signal Φ1 is high) such that the anode/cathode interface of the metal-silicon Schottky diode 301 has a first current density during that time period. The alternating current source 302 also supplies a different current through the metal-silicon Schottky diode during a second time period that is non-overlapping with the first time period (e.g., when clock signal (12 is high) such that the metal-silicon interface of the metal-silicon Schottky diode 301 has a different current density during that second time period.
A first capacitor 306 is configured to sample a voltage at the anode terminal 303 of the metal-silicon Schottky diode 301 during the first time period through the switch 309. A second capacitor 307 is configured to sample a voltage at the anode terminal 303 of the metal-silicon Schottky diode 301 during the second time period through the switch 310. An amplifier 308 has a negative input terminal coupled to the second capacitor 307 so as to receive the voltage sampled by the second capacitor, and a positive input terminal coupled to the first capacitor 306 so as to receive the voltage sampled by the first capacitor. The summer 305 sums the voltage at the output terminal of the amplifier 308 (which is a PTAT voltage), with the voltage at the positive input terminal of the amplifier (which is a CTAT voltage) to generate the output voltage.
There are a number of ways to generate the alternating current source 302 as will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art after having reviewed this description. Two examples are illustrated in
All of the embodiments described herein use the node voltage of the metal-silicon Schottky diode as the CTAT voltage source. The value of this voltage at zero degrees Kelvin is just the barrier height of the metal-silicon barrier, which is most often below the bandgap potential of silicon. When added to a suitably amplified PTAT voltage, the result is a temperature stable voltage reference that may be below the bandgap potential of silicon. Accordingly, the principles of the present invention are suitable for low voltage application in which low, but yet temperature stable, reference voltages are useful, and in which supply voltages may be low as well. Furthermore, this may be done using silicon, arguably one of the most well understood semiconductors.
The silicon-based voltage reference 300 of
The present invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. The described embodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrative and not restrictive. The scope of the invention is, therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes, which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims, are to be embraced within their scope.
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