AIR UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER

ENGINEERING

EXPERIMENT NO 6

Lab Title: Widlar & Wilson Current Source

Student Name: Muhammad Hamza Reg. No: 220666

Objective:

LAB ASSESSMENT:
Excellent Good Average Satisfactory Unsatisfactory
Attributes (5) (4) (3) (2) (1)
Ability to Conduct
Experiment
Ability to assimilate the
results
Effective use of lab
equipment and follows the
lab safety rules

Total Marks: Obtained Marks:

LAB REPORT ASSESSMENT:

Excellent Good Average Satisfactory Unsatisfactory
Attributes
(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)

Data presentation

Experimental results

Conclusion

Total Marks: Obtained Marks:

Date: Signature:
EXPERIMENT NO 4

Widlar & Wilson Current Source

Objectives:
 To build and investigate the functionality of Widlar Current Source & Wilson Current
Mirror.
 To obtained the results both in hardware Proteus simulation.

Equipment:
 Power Supply
 Digital Multimeter
 Transistor
 Resistors Discussion:
The two-transistor current source, also called as current mirror, is the basic building block in the IC current
source circuits. Basic current source circuit consists of two identical transistors, operating at the same
temperature, with base and emitter terminals connected together. B-E voltage is therefore the same for both
transistors. One of the transistors (QREF) is connected as a diode. When a voltage is applied, the B-E junction
of QREF is forward biased and a reference current IREF is established. Because the B-E voltage is the same
for both the transistors a load current Io is established in the load transistor (Q0).
When the desired current (Io) is small, the Widlar current source may be a better alternative. For instance,
if the required output bias current Io = 10𝜇A, then, for V+ = 5V and V- = -5V the required resistance value
for RREF is about 930 k𝛺. In IC, resistors on the order of 1M𝛺 require large areas and are difficult to fabricate
accurately. Therefore, we need to replace that resistance with one into k𝛺 range. The Widlar current source
meets that objective. A voltage difference is produced across resistor RE, so that B-E voltage of Q2 is less
then B-E voltage of Q1. A smaller B-E voltage produce a smaller collector current, which means the load
current Io is less than the reference current IREF. The Widlar Current Source is shown in Figure:

Figure 1 The Widlar Current Source

For Widlar current source, the following holds:

𝑉𝑇 𝐼𝐶1
𝑅2 ≈ ln ( )
𝐼𝐶2 𝐼𝐶2

𝑉𝐶𝐶 − 𝑉𝐵𝐸1
𝐼𝐶1 ≈ 𝐼𝑟𝑒𝑓 =
𝑅1

LM394 Super Match Pair:

The LM194 and LM394 are junction isolated ultra-well matched monolithic NPN transistor pairs with an
order of magnitude improvement in matching over conventional transistor pairs. The pin diagram of metal
can package is shown in figure below.

Procedure:
 Patch the circuit on Bread Board using LM394 IC according to Widlar Current source circuit
diagram.
 Apply VCC = 12 V from trainer and measure the output current and output voltages with the help
of DMM.
 Record the observed and calculated values of the following parameters.

Circuit Diagram:
Where: VCC = 12V, RREF = 1kΩ, RO = 1kΩ, RE = 10kΩ
Observed Values:

IREF:

IO:

VRO:

VRE:
Calculated Values:

IREF:

IO:

VRO:

VRE:

Lab tasks:
 Simulate the circuit in Proteus and compare the results with measured and calculated results.
 Repeat the above task again, now use the potentiometer at the place of RREF and measure the output
current at different values of R.
 Wilson Current Mirror

Discussion:
A Wilson current mirror is a three-terminal circuit that accepts an input current at the input terminal and
provides a "mirrored" current source or sink output at the output terminal. The mirrored current is a precise
copy of the input current. It may be used as a Wilson current source by applying a constant bias current to
the input branch. The circuit is named after George R. Wilson, an integrated circuit design engineer who
worked for Tektronix. Wilson devised this configuration in 1967 when he and Barrie Gilbert challenged
each other to find an improved current mirror overnight that would use only three transistors. Wilson won
the challenge.

Circuit Operation:
There are two principal metrics of how well a current mirror will perform as part of a larger circuit. The
first measure is the static error, the difference between the input and output currents expressed as a fraction
of the input current. Minimizing this difference is critical in such applications of a current mirror as the
differential to single-ended output signal conversion in a differential amplifier stage because this difference
controls the common mode and power supply rejection ratios. The second measure is the output impedance
of the current source or equivalently its inverse, the output conductance. This impedance affects stage gains
when a current source is used as an active load and affects common mode gain when the source provides
the tail current of a differential pair.
At first glance, the current mirror circuit shown in the figure would seem to be backwards. In fact, however,
it works quite well, although in a round-about fashion. A small amount of the current flowing through R
provides base current for Q3, enabling Q3 to conduct current. The bulk of this current, as with any transistor,
flows from emitter to collector. Of course, IC3= IO.
At the same time, IE3 becomes the reference current for the current mirror formed by Q1 and Q1. As we have
already seen when studying the basic current mirror, IC1 = IC2, and IE3= IC2+ 2IB.

Figure 2 Wilson Current Mirror

This arrangement provides a form of negative feedback loop. If for any reason IO begins to increase, IC2
must likewise increase, and IC1 will mirror that increase. This will increase the voltage drop across R, which
will in turn reduce the base voltage on Q3. That will reduce IO again. In reality, IO cannot change that way,
and the circuit does indeed operate as a current mirror.
Before we can calculate the currents flowing through different parts of this circuit, we must know the
voltages. Fortunately, that's very easy in this case. The emitters of Q1 and Q2 are grounded, and their bases
are connected to each other as well as to the collector of Q2 and the emitter of Q3. Therefore, this common
point is at a fixed voltage of VBE. In addition, the base of Q3, which is connected to the collector of Q1, must
be VBE above its emitter, which puts its voltage at 2VBE. The collector of Q3, which provides IO, can float
to any voltage between +V and [VBE + VCE(SAT)].
Now that we know all of the fixed circuit voltages, we can determine the basic circuit currents within the
mirror circuit. From the above, it looks as if everything can be expressed in terms of IC2, which is central
based on β, assuming all transistors have the same parameters. The final expression becomes: to the mirror
circuit. We can use this fact to derive the relationship between IO and IREF entirely

𝐼𝑂 𝛽+2
=
𝐼𝑅𝐸𝐹 𝛽 + 2 + 2⁄𝛽

𝐼𝑂 𝛽2 + 2𝛽

= 2 + 2𝛽 + 2
𝐼𝑅𝐸𝐹 𝛽
That slight difference of is generally negligible with modern high-gain transistors. This expression shows
that by splitting the base current between the two sides, the Wilson currentβ of 100, the error is less than
0.02%.

Output Resistance:
The use of two transistors in the output side of the Wilson current mirror affects the output resistance of the
circuit, much as an emitter resistor does. The advantage of using Q2 in place of a resistor is that the voltage
across Q2 will only be VBE regardless of the magnitude of IO, where an emitter resistor will generally drop
a higher voltage in accordance with Ohm's Law.
Of course, the fact that Q2 is connected as a diode limits its effective resistance in this application.
Nevertheless, it does help to significantly increase the effective output resistance of Q3. For the Wilson
current mirror:
LM394 Super Match Pair:

ROUT ≈ βro/2
The LM194 and LM394 are junction isolated ultra-well matched monolithic NPN transistor pairs with an
order of magnitude improvement in matching over conventional transistor pairs. The pin diagram of metal
can package is shown in figure below.
Procedure:
 Make the connections on the bread board as shown in figure.
 Apply VCC = 12 V
 Use the super matched pair LM394.
 Now with the help of DMM, measure the required values of current and voltage.
 Fill in the required values.

Circuit Diagram:

Where: VCC = 12V, R = 1kΩ, RC = 1kΩ

Observed Values:

IREF:

IO:

IC2:

V R:

VRC:

VCE2:

VCE3:

Ro:
Calculated Values:

IREF:

IO:

IC2:

V R:

VRC:

VCE2:

VCE3:

Ro:

Lab tasks:
 Simulate the circuit in Proteus and compare the results with measured and calculated results.
 Repeat the above task again, now use the potentiometer at the place of RREF and measure the output
current at different values of R.

Lab Report:
Your Lab Report should contain the following things.
 All the tasks of Widlar & Wilson Current Mirror.
 Calculated and Measured value of all the parameters.
 Simulated and hardware circuit diagram.
 Compare the results of basic current mirror and improved current mirror.