Constant Current Sources Since the voltage across base and emmiter lowers with rising tempera- 2) Two

s base and emmiter lowers with rising tempera- 2) Two Transistors

ture of Q1, the voltage over Rshunt rises accordingly, thus increasing
In the following I'll discuss advantages and disadvantages of several the current flowing. In the next circuit, transistor Q2 limits the base
current of Q1 as soon as the shunt voltage RBias RLoad
types of constant current sources, all built with bipolar transistors.
Dropout Voltage reaches its threshold. This results in a very
Q1
Why, you may ask, there are already numerous books and websites high TC, -2 mV/°C add directly to the shunt
When we talk about the ‘dropout voltage’ or the ‘voltage drop’ of the cir- Q2
covering this subject. Well, I needed one for a special project and I voltage which is only ~600 mV here what VS RShunt
made a few simulations with a special focus on temperature depen- cuit, I mean the part of VS that the circuit needs ‘for itself’ and that is not makes about 0.3%/°C. The advantage is the
dency, a point which most of the sites I found silently avoid or cover it available at the load: low voltage drop (remarkably below 1V) of the
only in a cursory manner. whole circuit, only slightly superset by the next circuit.
Let's consider the circuit as a series connection of RLoad, Q1 and
In the following circuits, Q1 is always the regulating transistor and VS is RShunt. The sum of these three voltages is VS. For the case of a low In contrast to other circuits, Q2 should here be mounted thermally as
the supply voltage, which in many cases will be a regulated DC supply isolated as possible from Q1 since the current is mainly determined by
impedance load, most of VS drops across the transistor. The regulation
but may also be the unregulated voltage directly from the bulk capacitor. Q2. Then practically only the ambient temperature plays a role, the vari-
just makes the transistor enough conductive such that the required cur-
ance of which is normally much smaller than the self-heating of Q1.
I do not distinguish current sinks from current sources. Consider a sink rent can flow. As RLoad increases, the voltage across the load in-
Nevertheless, Q2 must of course be in the vicinity of Q1 for circuit-tech-
simply as a source of negative current and you know why. They are creases and that across Q1 decreases accordingly. Ideally, the value nical reasons and will thus always also experience the generated heat
complementary parts. You will use a NPN transistor for a sink with a above RShunt remains constant because we want to build a constant from Q1 up to a certain degree.
load to the positive rail and a PNP for a source with a load against a current source. At some point we reach the saturation voltage of the
more negative one (GND, normally). transistor. It can no longer become more conductive and from this point Note: this is not about temperature compensation but about minimizing
on the load no longer has enough voltage available to draw the wanted the influence of self-heating! Changes of the ambient temperature still
There are some guys (telecom) that ground the positive rail and thus current. have full effect.
have a negative supply. The terms “sink” and “source” had just to be
swapped then... The voltage drop of the circuit is the saturation voltage of the transistor 3) Diode Reference
plus the voltage across RShunt at the nominal current.
You can find my simulations on the downloads page.
Since the forward voltage of an ordinary diode
A Note about Temperature Compensation is quite constant, you may also use one as a RBias RLoad
General Circuit reference. As we have seen, the reference
I found several circuits on the web that point at some part and say it is must be larger than VBE so we need two of Q1
Most constant current sources follow a very for temperature compensation. Be careful when following such prom- D1
RLoad them. The advantage of this circuit is its low
simple principle: keep a constant voltage ises. Temperature compensation always requires tight thermal coupling
VS D2 RShunt
dropout voltage since the voltage across the
(Vref) at the base of a BJT and you'll get a between the compensated and the compensating part. Without that, the
Q1 shunt is only ~600 mV. (D1 roughly compen-
constant voltage at the emitter. Connect a con- circuit is only compensated for changes of the ambient temperature. sates for the TC of Q1, but the TC of D2 has a full impact). This has to
stant resistor (Rshunt) from emitter to GND (or Self heating of the transistor must be transferred as fast and as per-
VS VRef RShunt be paid with a high TC of about 0.3%/°C and the by far worst line regu-
to VS for a PNP) and you'll get a constant fectly as possible to the compensating device. As we will see, this is lation in this comparison.
emitter current. This is also nearly the collector not always a simple task.
current so no matter what you connect to the collector, it will carry the So the best temperature compensation could be achieved if D1 is ther-
same current. 1) A Simple Approach mally coupled to Q1 while D2 is kept at ambient temperature as close
as possible, which normally varies only slightly. My simulations do not
The reference voltage obviously has to be more than the base-emitter The simplest (and cheapest) way to produce reflect this, since the degree of coupling or isolation depends to a large
voltage of the transistor plus some amount to drop across the shunt Vref is a voltage divider. Obviously, this only R1 RLoad
degree on your layout and a possible enclosure. This would have to be
resistor. works if VS is constant. Also, the current tested out for any special case.
Q1
through the voltage divider has to be much
Well, in theory this works but in practice this circuit, although using an
higher than the base current to reduce temper- VS R2 RShunt
ideal reference voltage, has a relatively large temperature coefficient
ature effects on the current gain and due to
due to the TC of the base-emitter voltage of about -2 mV/°C. The higher
production spread.
Vref, the lower its influence but the higher is also the voltage drop
across the circuit. This circuit is not temperature compensated at all. You'll get the -2 mV/
°C from VBE what will result in a positive TC of the current, depending
Even with an ideally stable reference voltage, the current through RLoad
on the voltage across R2.
would not be constant if the temperature of Q1 varies!
4) LED Reference 6) Two Transistors + Reference Here the range 0..6 V. The sharp bend at the
cursor line is where the TLV431 comes into
This is the first circuit that claims to be temper- This circuit is my favorite one and I decided to regulation. It is at about 2.9 V what is close to
ature compensated. The idea is that the for- RBias RLoad build it in real world to see how it performs. Q2 RBias RLoad the simulation results. Note that this is not the
ward voltage of a red LED is about 1.8 V and compensates for the TC of Q1 and the dropout voltage since we already have 1 V
thus can be used as a single reference ele- Q1
TLV431 gives an accurate reference voltage Q1 drop across the load.
Q2
ment. Also, the TC of the LED compensates of 1.24 V which is mainly also the voltage drop
VS D1 RShunt VS RShunt
for the TC of the transistor, voila: ideal circuit! across the shunt. The quality of temperature TLV431
But beware: the temperature of the LED must compensation depends on the bias current
be the same than that of the transistor for this So the line regulation of this circuit is relatively bad. This could be im-
and has to be verified in the real circuit if you want to minimize it. In
proved by replacing the bias resistor by another constant current
to work! Good thermal coupling between a LED and a transistor is not some circuits I found on the web Q2 is a simple diode but nothing can
source. If you have a few volts reserve, you could use the LED or Zener
easy, especially for THT parts. reflect the characteristics of the BE diode better than another transistor
type which have lower TCs. Since it will only have to supply a few hun-
of the same type. Especially if you use SMD you can get two transistors dred µA, the self heating could be neglected.
If you have only low current, where self heating of the transistor can be in one package. There is no way to improve thermal coupling any
neglegted, this circuit may perform quite well. further.
Calculation of RBias
Well, I am not a friend of such tricks. The forward voltage is not a guar- This circuit is a bit more expensive than the preceding ones (mainly the
anteed parameter of a LED. It may vary from part to part, for different cost of the TLV431, 29 cent at my local dealer, about 10 cent in produc- The value of RBias is initially quite uncritical. In my test setup, I simply
manufacturers or if the chemistry changes (e.g. from GaAsP to tion volumes) but I was stunned by the TC of the circuit. From room tem- aimed for 1 mA by ‘rule of thumb’ and came up with 12 kΩ (and it
InGaAlP). Even if you get a low TC, the absolute accuracy may be poor. perature to -50°C (coolant spray) it stayed well below 1%, that is far be- worked quite well...). I'll now explain how to do it if you want it exactly:
If your cirquit is on the long run, your LED will become obsolete some low 200 ppm/°C!
day and you may get into trouble... Initial situation: we have a supply of 12 V and want to generate a con-
If you need more than one, you may share the R RBia sn RLo a dn
stant current of 10 mA.
5) Zener Reference cost of a single TLV431 connected to all of the
Bia s1

Q1n
Q2s, maybe with a small decoupling capacitor. Q2 1
Q2n A suitable transistor would be the BC546, for example. It has a guaran-
The next approach frequently seen is using a But give every Q2x its own bias resistor or the
V
TLV431
S
RShunt n
teed current gain of 110 (always use the guaranteed values from the
Zener diode. Here you have two temperature RBias RLoad data sheet, not the typical values, which will often work, but not al-
performance may go down the toilet. Read the
coefficients, the transistor and the diode. Due datasheet of the TLV regarding stability with capacitive load. ways...). We therefore need a base current of at least
to the nature of a Zener diode, its TC depends Q1 10 mA/100=100 µA. In addition, the TLV needs a minimum current for
on the Zener voltage. Below a certain voltage On the photo you can see I built it with THT stabilization, which is also 100 µA according to the data sheet. As luck
VS D1 RShunt
the zener effect with its negative TC domi- components. Only the TLV431 is a SMD, would have it, similar currents flow in both BE diodes using them in sim-
nates while higher voltages are mainly af- mounted on the solder side since it is not ilar operating points, which certainly does not harm the temperature
fected by the avalance effect having a positive available as a through hole component. stability.
TC. For diodes <5 V the TC is negative, for such >5 V it is positive.
Around 5 V it is close to 0. By playing with the Zener voltage you can It is also built with PNP transistors since I Around 2 V drop across the TLV431 (1.24 V) and the BE diode of Q2
TLV431 RShunt (0.6..0.7 V), leaving 10 V for the bias resistor. (Attention: there is also a
get a fairly low TC for the whole circuit. needed a grounded load. I mounted the two 120

transistors face-to-face to get better thermal Q2 TL431, but it regulates to 2.5 V!)
BC557

Since the TC of the VBE is negative with about -2 mV/°C, the TC of the coupling. You could also put heat transfer Q1
As you can see, I have generously rounded the dimensions here.
BC557

Zener diode should also be negative to keep the voltage drop across paste in between and tie them together with a
VS RBias RLoad β=100 instead of 110, 2 V instead of 1.84 V, the exact value is really not
Rshunt as constant as possible. The Zener voltage should therefore be spring. 12k

somewhat less than 5 V. A 4.7 V Zener diode turns out to be almost This may significantly reduce the response important here. But you should always round to the safe side in order to
ideal in the simulation. time according to rapidly varying loads. create reserves instead of using them up.

The disadvantage of this circuit is the significantly higher voltage drop The wiring side. Quick and dirty, what shall I RBias would therefore be 10 V/200 µA=50 kΩ, a 47 kΩ would probably
of almost 4 V. say... The TLV431 is the small black dot on be suitable, just not greater than 50 kΩ.
top, right from the center.
In my test setup I have, as I said, selected 12 kΩ, the exact value is not
Since I do not have an environmental chamber critical. However, it may be that a bit more or less improves or worsens
I cannot offer you graphs of current over tem- the temperature coefficient, you would really have to try it out. This can
perature but here you see current vs. supply certainly be done in the simulation, but if you really want to be sure you
voltage, rising from 0 V to 32 V. The current should check it in reality.
stays within ±10% from about 5 V to 32 V. The
current is measured via the voltage drop Nevertheless, please note: when comparing with real compo-
across the 100 Ω load resistor. nents, you are working with typical values! Namely with the tran-
sistor you just picked from the basket. With a different one or
even one from another manufacturer, things can look completely
different! This is not what I would call ‘development’, this is sim-
ply trying out. Only if you try out tens of transistors or more, of dif-
ferent manufacturers, we may again talk of development...
The calculation for the other circuits would work in a similar way, only 8) Other References The controller here sets the reference voltage (its VCC) and the current
here you might have 1 mA for the Zener current for #5, similar for #4 will be about (3.3 V-0.6 V)/130 Ω. Simple and often useful. The disad-
and for #2 the additional current is completely omitted (but the circuit In many circuits you will have other references readily available that you vantage is its high voltage drop (VCC minus some 100 mV) but it is dirt
still has to draw it if you dimension RBias too small, Q2 must dissipate might not think of, like in the following example: cheap and dead simple!
the excess base current).
Imagine you have some microcontroller sup- 12Vunre g
D1 9) PNP Transistor+Referenz (!Update!)
7) Transistor + Reference plied at stable 3.3 V (±4%, is this good 3V3 D2
20mA
enough?). The whole thing gets its power from VCC RBase
Only recently I learned by chance about a cir-
a transformer which gives us an unregulated I/Ox Q1 RShunt
Using a shunt regulator you can also build a optional cuit LM4041, which is quasi the PNP equiva-
RBias RLoad voltage of about 12 V after the bridge rectifier. LM4041
constant current source with only one transistor VS GND 130 lent of the TLV431. Here the reference voltage ADJ
as shown on the schematic. You can consider Now you want to control a few LEDs with an is not measured against GND but against VS. Q1
this as a modification of circuit #2 using a Q1 I/O pin. Look at the circuit on the right: it is a
TLV431
(nearly) ideal transistor Q2, although one with constant current sink! This allows highly accurate current sources for
VS RBias RLoad
VS RShunt
a VBE of 1.24 V. The TLV ‘steals’ the base cur- loads against GND and makes my favorite
Normally, there is no need for a base resistor (except VCC may be
rent of Q1 as soon as its threshold voltage is (#6) obsolete to some extent.
present without VS or the collector may be 'open'). If at least, it may be
met. This is very accurate and practically independent of the tempera-
ture. So this circuit is the one with the highest accuracy and the lowest kept relatively small just to limit the current to the maximum port or base However, it still offers advantages if your circuit is very cost sensitive
TC. The voltage drop is also in this region since below, the regulation of current, about 47 Ω in our case (3.3V/177Ω < 20mA). This also mini- (the LM4041 is much more expensive) or you can split the TLV to multi-
the TLV will not work so this circuit is only in the mean range as far as mizes switching times. ple current sources, which is also not possible in this circuit.
dropout is concerned. The biggest disadvantage of this circuit is, it can
The maximum base current e.g. for a BC546 is at 200mA, the one for a It always depends on the individual case.
only be used together with a NPN transistor and it is therefore not suit-
port pin is typically 20mA. So the maximum current we get is at (3.3V-
able for loads against GND. Besides this, the TLV431 cannot, in oppo- This circuit is not part of the simulations so far but I assume it could
0.6V)/130Ω what makes 20.7mA and is (almost) in a safe region and I
site to circuit 6, be part of more than one current source. compete well in reality.
would not hesitate to eliminate the base resistor.

Here a table of a few characteristics of the eight circuits:

Circuit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Dropout Voltage >(1 V)1 0.75 V 0.65 V 1.3 V 3.8 V 1.35 V 1.35 V 2.7 V
Temperature Coefficient high+ high- high- low+ low+ very low very low low+

Line Regulation3 ±1%2 ±3.5% ±15% ±5% ±0.5% ±2.5% <0.1% ±0.2%
low low low low low high high very low
Cost4 8ct 8ct 10ct 8ct 8ct 37ct 35ct 4ct
The values are based on my simulations. If you have significantly different requirements you should make your own simulations and prototypes to verify the results. Use it on your own risk.

1 Dependent on part values of the voltage divider.

2 Using a regulated supply for bias supply.
3 Variation of V S from 8 to 32 V, 3.3 V kept constant.
4 Price (in €) for one piece THT at my local dealer.
A nice graph of the (simulated) temperature dependency of the current Why three? The sense pin and the sink pin are separated. This makes
at 12 V. The numbers correspond to the circuit numbers in the text. I the “zener” voltage adjustable. There are also parts that have these pins
have trimmed the shunt resistors to get 10 mA at 25°C so all traces internally connected (laser trimmed to a certain voltage) and thus act as
meet in that point. a nearly ideal zener diode.

The curves for circuit 6 and 7 show only little difference. As it oftenly is, In most cases? Well, a PN junction reacts more quickly to changes than
the best circuits are also the most expensive ones. Also circuit 5 seems a complex circuit, together with necessary frequency compensation. So
to perform nearly perfect but it is clearly worse in the following graphs. if you have fast switching frequencies and steep edges a different cir-
cuit might be the better one.
Maybe I should have added, the TLV431 as a so called “reference
diode” in fact is a complex integrated circuit and not just a “diode” in the
meaning of a PN junction. But it has only two (well, three) pins and just
behaves like a zener diode, only better than this (well, in most cases).

The line regulation from 8 to 32 V. Again, all traces meet at 12 V/10 mA. In circuit 5 the line regulation can be influenced considerably by the
Trimming of the shunt resistors makes it easy to compare the circuits choice of the bias resistor. A higher bias current shifts the characteristic
this way. trace towards the steeper range and might thus have a positive effect.

In circuit 1, the voltage divider used a constant voltage, it would not Circuit 7 anyway takes full advantage of the ideal characteristics of a
make sense otherwise. reference diode.

An especially bad candidate seems to be circuit 3 since the diode

characteristic here strikes twice but it might be substancially improved
by another constant current source supplying the diodes. But we still
would have the double TC, otherwise compared to circuit 4 which would
compete much better then. Just make a simulation...
 And finally the dropout voltage of each circuit. I used a constant 12 V So circuit #5 seems to be the loser here, but if the voltage drop is not
supply voltage, executed a sweep for a load resistance of 800 to critical it can still be the better choice! In the other graphs it performs
1200 Ω and measured the collector voltage. Ideally this would give a quite well and it is comparatively cheap.
straight line of 12 V-(10 mA×RLoad). Below a certain voltage, the tran-
sistor can no longer source enough current. The collector voltage at this In circuit #1 you can also exert influence on the trace. A higher Vref low-
point is the dropout voltage we are looking for. In the graph this is at the ers temperature dependency but also raises the voltage drop. This also
point where the trace bends to the right. Keep in mind that this point applies to the zener reference (#5). A lower zener voltage lowers the
also depends on temperature, I measured at 25°C only. voltage drop but will negatively touch its temperature coefficient.
It is hardly surprising that circuits with higher shunt resistors also show a
higher dropout voltage. Simulate it, build it, test it and sell it...

Conclusion It is important to use exactly the components in the simulation that you My requirements were at least 10 mA at RLoad=800 Ω and VS=12 V
want to use in real life! It is not enough to take a standard model of a (yes, indeed a S0 interface). I would have chosen circuit #6 and
Even ‘simple’ circuits like these bear a great potential of optimization. Zener diode. Especially in experiments with circuit 5 I have seen that a would have had to ultimately dimension it to 10.5 mA to be safe over the
Depending on your demands you can get low line regulation, low tem- BZX6V2 from Rohm gives a worse TC than a 1N750 (4.7V) but a much temperature range, if my company's insolvency had not beaten me to it
perature coefficient or low price, unfortunately not all at the same time. better line regulation. ... This would have limited the current consumption of a module (of
The dropout voltage may be a reason to exclude otherwise perfect which there were umpteen in a single device) to <12 mA (instead of
circuits. It should also be noted that all of these current sources actually regulate 20 mA currently) and thus reduced the requirements on the power sup-
the current through RShunt! This is higher by the base current of Q1 ply accordingly.
Sometimes one mA or two don't matter, sometimes VS is constant to than the current through RLoad, which we actually want to control. This
within a few percent, but sometimes you may need it to be a little more may become relevant for higher currents and power transistors with a This would have made the designer of the power supply (well, me, too)
precise.... relatively small current gain. You may want to consider a darlington con- happy. Only 1.5A instead of 2.5A, the transformer would be smaller, the
figuration as Q1 for this case, although increasing the voltage drop. fan can be eliminated and so on...
However, always keep in mind that all components must have the same
temperature, even if Q1 heats up due to its power dissipation! I examined a relatively wide supply voltage range here. Any of these cir- In your project, other parameters may be determinant...
cuits may be tuned by changing resistor values to optimally fit into your
The tight thermal coupling is a challenge in many cases. Especially to- environment. The simulations should give a good starting point. Adopt
gether with a rapidly changing load this may lead to unacceptable them to your demands and finally verify the real circuit to be safe from
disturbances. surprises.
Imprint/Privacy policy © Robert Loos 2007-2024
this page was last updated on 2024/02/04, 08:30PM