Low-Dropout Voltage Source: An Alternative Approach for Low-Dropout Voltage Regulators

In this brief, a high-order temperature-compensated 0.6-V low-dropout voltage source (LDVS) is realized in standard 0.13-μm CMOS technology. The LDVS operates at supply voltages down to 0.75 V and consumes only 39 μA while providing up to 100 mA of load current. Gate-to-channel capacitance values of MOSFETs are employed to implement the capacitors, reducing chip area and enabling integration in any inexpensive CMOS technology. The regulation loop is compensated using a combined pole-splitting and feedforward technique, which results in stable operation from a no-load current to 100 mA of full-load current. A temperature-dependent current-driven voltage generator is proposed to suppress the line-voltage sensitivity of the LDVS. To further improve line regulation, a line-voltage compensation circuit is introduced, which lowers the line sensitivity by about three times down to 0.54%/V. With a supply voltage of 1 V and no output filtering capacitor, the mean power-supply rejection is -51 and -24 dB for 1 and 10 MHz, respectively. The proposed LDVS requires no startup circuit. The 0.1% startup settling time is 73 μs with a supply voltage of 0.8 V and a load current of 1 mA. In the temperature range of -25 °C- +85 °C, it demonstrates a maximum temperature drift of only 32 ppm/°C.