Design of a compact and low supply voltage CMOS voltage reference generator

Abstract

This paper describes a novel compact voltage reference generator able to provide low voltage and low power operation. The current-mode scheme, designed and simulated in a standard 0.18-μm CMOS technology, uses MOS transistors in sub-threshold to achieve low voltage operation. Post layout simulation results show that the proposed circuit is able to generate a reference voltage of 214.5 mV with a supply voltage as low as 0.45 V while consuming a total current of 251 nA. The circuit occupies an area of 0.018 mm2 and achieves an average temperature coefficient of 65.8 ppm/°C for temperatures ranging from −40° C to 100C.