CDTA-Based Current Limiters and Applications

In this paper, a synthesis of analog current limiter (CL) building blocks based on a current differencing transconductance amplifier (CDTA) is proposed. The breakpoint and the slope of the resulting transfer characteristic obtained from the proposed CDTA-based CLs are electronically programmable through the external bias currents. To demonstrate versatility of the proposed electronically tunable CLs, some nonlinear applications to programmable current-mode precision full-wave rectifier and piecewise-linear function approximation generators are also presented. SPICE simulations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed circuits.