Low Voltage Buffered Bandgap Reference

Peter Hazucha1,  Fabrice Paillet1,  Sung Moon1,  David Rennie2,  Gerhard Schrom1,  Donald Gardner1,  Kenneth Ikeda1,  Gell Gellman1,  Tanay Karnik1
1Intel Corporation, 2University of Waterloo


Abstract

We propose a new bandgap reference topology for supply voltages as low as one diode drop (~0.8V). In conventional low-voltage references, supply voltage is limited by the generated reference voltage. Also, the proposed topology generates the reference voltage at the output of the feedback amplifier. This eliminates the need for an additional output buffer, otherwise required in conventional topologies. With the bandgap core biased from the reference voltage, the new topology is also suitable for a low-voltage shunt reference. We fabricated a 1V, 0.35mV/ºC reference occupying 0.013mm2 in a 90nm CMOS process.