Methods and devices for clamping an output of an amplifier stage of an amplifier are presented. According to one aspect, a clamp sense circuit senses a voltage at a node of an internal stage of the amplifier. The clamp sense circuit senses a region of operation of the clamp circuit and correspondingly controls a current limiter that is introduced in the amplifier to limit a current through the internal stage of the amplifier. Limiting the current in turn causes limiting a current path from a clamp circuit through the output of the amplifier stage. According to another aspect, the clamp sense circuit is a replica of the amplifier stage of the amplifier, the output of the amplifier stage coupled to the clamp circuit, and an output of the replica decoupled from the clamp circuit.

Voltage-to-current converters that include two current mirrors are disclosed. In an example voltage-to-current converter each current mirror is a complementary current mirror in that one of its input and output transistors is a P-type transistor and the other one is an N-type transistor. Such voltage-to-current converters may be implemented using bipolar technology, CMOS technology, or a combination of bipolar and CMOS technologies, and may be made sufficiently compact and accurate while operating at sufficiently low voltages and consuming limited power.

A circuit including an amplifier having an input and an output. The circuit also includes a current-to-voltage amplifier having an input. The circuit further includes a current mirror coupled between the output of the amplifier and the input of the current-to-voltage amplifier. The current mirror is configured to chop current flowing through the first current mirror.

An example current mirror arrangement includes a current mirror circuit, configured to receive an input current signal at an input transistor Q1 and output a mirrored signal at an output transistor Q2. The arrangement further includes a buffer amplifier circuit, having an input coupled to Q1 and an output coupled to Q2. The offset of the buffer amplifier circuit can be adjusted by including circuitry for an input or an output side offset adjustment or by implementing the buffer amplifier circuit as a diamond stage with individually controlled current sources for each of the transistors of the diamond stage. Providing an adjustable offset buffer in a current mirror arrangement may advantageously allow benefiting from the use of a buffer outside of a feedback loop of a current mirror, while being able to reduce the buffer offset due to mismatch between master and slave sides of the current mirror circuit.

Methods and systems are described that include a differential amplifier driving an active load circuit, the active load circuit having a pair of load transistors and a high-frequency gain stage providing high frequency peaking for the active load circuit according to a frequency response characteristic determined in part by resistive values of a pair of active resistors connected, respectively, to gates of the pair of load transistors, and a bias circuit configured to stabilize the high frequency peaking of the high-frequency gain stage by generating a process-and-temperature variation (PVT)-dependent control voltage at gates of the active resistors to stabilize the resistive values of the pair of active resistors to account for PVT-dependent voltages at the gates of the pair of load transistors.

A circuit including an amplifier having an input and an output. The circuit also includes a current-to-voltage amplifier having an input. The circuit further includes a current mirror coupled between the output of the amplifier and the input of the current-to-voltage amplifier. The current mirror is configured to chop current flowing through the first current mirror.

In an embodiment a device includes an input node configured to receive a first current, an output node configured to provide a second current determined by the first current, a first resistor having a first terminal connected to the input node and a second terminal coupled to a first node configured to receive a first supply voltage, a first MOS transistor having a source connected to the first node and a drain coupled to the output node of the device, a second resistor having a first terminal connected to a gate of the first MOS transistor, a biasing circuit configured to provide a biasing voltage on a second terminal of the second resistor and a first capacitor connected between the input node and the gate of the first MOS transistor.

Provided is a driving apparatus including a temperature detection circuit configured to output a temperature detection signal corresponding to a temperature of a switching device, a current detection circuit configured to sample, at a timing during an ON period of the switching device, a current detection signal corresponding to a current that flows in the switching device, and a driving circuit configured to adjust, according to the temperature detection signal and the current detection signal, a driving current to be supplied to a control terminal of the switching device. When the current detection signals are the same, the driving circuit may decrease the driving current according to the temperature detection signal indicating a lower temperature of the switching device. When the temperature detection signals are the same, the driving circuit may decrease the driving current according to the current detection signal indicating a smaller current regarding the main current.

A circuit including an amplifier having an input and an output. The circuit also includes a current-to-voltage amplifier having an input. The circuit further includes a current mirror coupled between the output of the amplifier and the input of the current-to-voltage amplifier. The current mirror is configured to chop current flowing through the first current mirror.

An amplifier includes a first stage and a second stage. The first stage includes a floating current source to maintain current within a threshold. The first stage also includes a local common mode feedback configured to provide gain to an input signal. Moreover, the second stage includes a driver that provides a load current to a load coupled to the amplifier.