st

Proceedings of the 1 International Conference on Technical Education (ICTE2009)

January 21-22, 2010 Bangkok, Thailand

MO-CTTA-based Electronically Controlled Current-

mode Square/Triangular Wave Generator
Jongjarean Kumbun and Montree Siripruchyanun
Department of Teacher Training in Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of
Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, 10800, THAILAND
Tel: +66-2- 913-2500 Ext. 3328 Fax. +66-2-587-8255, E-mail: jongcharoen.ku@rmuti.ac.th; mts@kmutnb.ac.th

Abstract- A new current-mode square/triangular wave whose input and output signals are currents. In addition, its
generator based on MO-CTTAs (Multiple output current through output current gain can be electronically adjusted.
transconductance amplifiers) is presented in this paper. The
circuit description is very simple, its construction consists of 2
From the mentioned problems, CTTA-based the current-
MO-CTTAs and 1 grounded capacitor without any external mode square/triangular wave generator has been presented in
resistor. The output frequency and amplitude can be this report. The features of the proposed circuit are that: the
independently and electronically adjusted. With mentioned circuit description is very simple, its construction consists of
features, it is very suitable to realize in a monolithic chip. The only two MO-CTTAs cooperating with one grounded
PSPICE simulation results are depicted, and agree well with the capacitor: the output frequency and amplitude of the output
theoretical anticipation. The maximum power consumption is current can be tuned independently/electronically, thus, it can
approximately 3.27mW at ±1.5V power supply.
be directly applied in an automatic control system via a
microprocessor. The performances of proposed circuit proved
I. INTRODUCTION
by PSPICE simulations results are also shown, which are in
A square/triangular wave generator is widely used in correspondence with the theoretical analysis.
communication systems, instrumentation, and signal
processing applications [1-2]. From literatures review, several IB 1 IB 2 IB 3
square/triangular wave generators have been proposed. They Ix1 Vx1
Vn in x1
are implemented by different high-performance active n
elements such as OTAs [3], current conveyors [4-5], CFOAs Ix2 Vx2
MO-CTTA x2
[6], and OTRA [7]. However, these reported circuits suffer Vp ip
p z Ix3 Vx3
from one or more of following weaknesses: x3
 Excessive use of the active/passive elements, especially iz
external resistors [3-7]. Vz
 Use of a floating resistor, which is not convenient to (a)
further fabricate in IC [4-7]. gm1Vz
 Absence of electronic controllability of output x
n
magnitude and frequency [4-7]. ip in gm2Vz
Presently, there is a growing interest in synthesizing current- p x
mode circuits because of more their potential advantages such gm3Vz
as larger dynamic range, higher signal bandwidth, greater z x
ip
linearity, simpler circuitry, and lower power consumption [8-
11]. In the point of view, the current–mode technique is ideally (b)
suited to this purpose more so than the voltage-mode type. Figure. 1. The MO-CTTA (a) symbol (b) equivalent circuit.
Unfortunately, their mentioned literature operations are in
voltage-modes. Recently, the square-wave generators based on
current-mode technique and high-performance active building IB1 IB2
blocks, such as CDTA [12], CC-CDTA [13], have been
introduced. However, they need to use one or more of the p x1 Iout
passive elements, which is not suitable to further fabricate in MO-CTTA
IC or practical implementation. In addition, they cannot Iin n x2
z
generate triangular-wave for the same topology.
In 2004, the current through transconductance amplifier Figure. 2. Circuit diagram of current-mode Schmitt trigger.
(CTTA) [14], presented by Biolek and Biolková, seems to be a
versatile component in the realization of a class of analog
signal processing circuits. It is really current-mode element

158
 II. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION Iout
IB1
A. Basic Concept of MO-CTTA
Since the proposed circuit based on MO-CTTA, a brief
review of the MO-CTTA is given in this section. The voltage -IB2 IB2
and current relationships of MO-CTTA are shown in (1) Iin
V p  Vn  0, I p   I n   I z , I x1  g m1Vz , I x 2  g m 2Vz , I x 3  g m 3Vz , (1)
I B1 I I
where g m1 
, g m 2  B 2 , g m3  B3 . (2)
2VT 2VT 2VT
-IB1
VT is the thermal voltage. The symbol and the equivalent
circuit of the MO-CTTA are illustrated in Figs. 1(a) and (b), Figure. 3. Transfer characteristic of Schmitt trigger.
respectively. IB1 IB2 IB3 IB4 IB5
B. Principle of Current-mode Schmitt trigger [15] x4 Iout2
p x1 n
Iout1
Because the current-mode Schmitt trigger is the core block to MO-CTTA x2 MO-CTTA
realize the proposed circuit, a summary review of the current- n z x3 p z x5
mode Schmitt trigger is delivered in this section. The current-
mode Schmitt trigger is shown in Fig. 2. By using the MO- C
CTTA properties, the output current can be obtained as
  Vz  Figure. 4. Circuit diagram of the proposed square/triangular wave generator.
 I B1 tanh   if I in  I x 2
  2VT  iout  t 
I out   (3) I B1
  Vz 
 I B1 tanh  2V  if I in  I x 2 . I B3 I B 4
  T 
I B5
If n -terminal is connected as a positive feedback where z-
terminal is floated, the output voltage at z -terminal can be I B3 I B 4
found to be 
I B5
Vz  VCC if I in  I x 2 , (4)
I B1
Vz  VEE if I in  I x 2 , (5) T1 T2
where VCC and VEE are the positive and negative voltage T
Figure. 5. Output waveforms of the current-mode square/triangular wave
supplies, respectively. From (3), if Vz  2VT , the following generator.
term can be approximately reduced to C. Principle of Current-mode Square/Triangular wave Generator
 V  The current-mode square/triangular wave generator is shown
tanh  z   1 . (6) in Fig. 4. It comprises 2 MO-CTTAs, and 1 grounded capacitor,
 2VT 
where first MO-CTTA acts as the current-mode Schmitt trigger
It is clearly seen that, the MO-CTTA operates in the saturation- and second MO-CTTA functioning as a current-mode
mode. From (3), we can receive the output current as integrator. Fig. 5 displays the output waveforms of the current-
 I B1 for I in  I x 2 mode square-wave generator. Based on properties of MO-
I out   (7)
 I B1 for I in  I x 2 . CTTA in saturation-mode, the output magnitudes of the square
and triangular wave can be found to be
Additionally, the threshold levels can be found to be
I out1( p  p )  2 I B1 , (11)
ITH  I B 2 , (8)
and
ITL   I B 2 . (9)
I B3 I B 4
We found in (8) and (9) that, the upper and lower threshold I out 2( p  p )  2 . …………….(12)
currents can be linearly adjusted by I B 2 . From (8) and (9), the I B5
magnitude of output current of the Schmitt trigger can be From routine analysis, the positive interval T1  square/
expressed to be triangular wave can be expressed as
 I B1 for I in  ITL 4CI B 3VT
I out   (10) T1  . (13)
 I B1 for I in  ITH . I B 2 I B5
The transfer characteristic of the Schmitt trigger is concisely In ideal case, the intervals T1 and T2 are equal, so the period
displayed in Fig. 3. time can be obtain
8CI B 3VT
T  2T1  . (14)
I B 2 I B5

159
From (14), it can be found that, the proposed circuit can be Q9 Q10 Q12 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 Q19 Q20
VCC
Q11 Q21 Q22
directly applied in a temperature to time interval conversion, Q13
x1 x2 x3
z1
which is frequently used in an instrumentation system [16]. IA
Q7
n
Q8
x
z2

From (13), the frequency subsequently expressed as Q5 Q6

Q28 Q29 Q30 Q31 Q32 Q33

1 I I Q24 Q26
f   B 2 B5 . Q1 Q3 Q4 IB1 IB2 IB3
(15) Q2
Q23 Q25
Q27

T 8CI B 3VT VEE

It can be seen that the obtained frequency can be electronically
controlled by I B 2 . It can be concluded here that, from (12)-(13)
and (15), the output amplitude and frequency can be
independently/electronically tuned. This means that the
adjustment of frequency by IB2 does not affect its output
amplitudes: Iout1 and Iout2, which can be tuned by IB1 and IB4,
respectively.
D. Non Ideal Case
For non-ideal case, the MO-CTTA in saturation-mode can
be characterized by
Iz   p I p  n In ,
(16)
I x1   x1 I B1 ,
Figure. 6. Internal construction of MO-CTTA.
Fig. 7 displays the square/triangular wave of the proposed
circuit. Fig. 8 shows the output square-wave for different I B1 .
The output triangular waves for different I B 4 are displayed in
Fig. 9. From Figs. 8 and 9, they confirm that the output square
and triangular wave amplitudes can be tuned by electronic
method. Moreover, the adjustments of output amplitudes do
not affect the output frequency, as analyzed in (11)-(12) and
(15).
40
IB1=20µA, IB2=40µA, IB3=40µA, IB4=40µA, IB5=90µA
20

Current (µA)
(17)
I x2   x2 IB2 , (18) 0

and -20
I x 3   x 3 I B 3 , (19)
-40
where  p ,  n ,  x1 ,  x 2 and  x 3 are transferred values, which 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time(ms)
350 400 450 500

can be deviated from one. Taking  p ,  n ,  x1 ,  x 2 and  x 3 into Figure. 7. The output transient responses of the square/triangular wave
generator.
account, the output amplitude and oscillation frequency of the IB1=20µA IB1=40µA IIB1
B1=60µA
=60µA
80
proposed square/triangular generator can be found to be
I out1( p  p )  2 x1 I B1 , (20) 40
Current (µA)

  I I
I out 2( p  p )  2 x3 x 4 B3 B 4 , (21) 0
 x5 I B5
-40
and
 x 2 x 5 I B 2 I B 5 -80
f  . (22) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 x 3 8CI B 3VT Time(ms)
Figure. 8. The square-wave amplitude variations of the square/triangular wave
If these error factors are close to unity, the deviations of the generator for different I B1 .
output amplitudes and frequency values in (20)-(22) can be
IB4=20µA IB4=40µA IB4=60µA IB3 = 40µA, IB5 = 90µA
neglected. Practically, the  p ,  n ,  x1 ,  x 2 and  x 3 originate 40

from intrinsic resistances and stray capacitances in the MO- 20

Current (µA)

CTTA. These errors affect the sensitivity to temperature and

0
high frequency response of the proposed circuit. Consequently,
the MO-CTTA should be carefully designed to achieve these -20
errors as low as possible.
-40
III. SIMULATION RESULTS 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
. Time(ms)
To prove the performances of the proposed square/triangular Figure. 9. The output triangular-wave of the square/triangular wave generator
wave generator, the PSPICE simulation program was used. The for different I B 4 .
PNP and NPN transistors employed in the proposed circuit
were simulated by respectively using the parameter of the
NR200N and PR200N bipolar transistors of ALA400 transistor
array from AT&T [17]. Fig. 6 depicts schematic description of
the MO-CTTA used in the simulations. The proposed circuit
was biased with 1.5V , where C was set to 5nF.

160
 10 1000
From Eq.(15) C=5nF IB3=40A, IB5=80A
Simulated C=5nF
From Eq.(15) C=50nF
100 Simulated C=50nF
0 From Eq.(15) C=500nF
Frequency Deviation (%)

Simulated C=500nF

Frequency (kHz)
10

-10

-20
.1

-30
0 20 40
Temperature ( oC)
Figure. 10. The output frequency deviation for temperature variations.
The frequency deviations of the output signal due to
temperature variations are shown in Fig. 10, it is almost
linearly dependent, as depicted in (15). The output transient
responses of the square/triangular wave generator for different
frequencies are also displayed in Figs. 11(a)-(c). Fig. 12
describes the plots of the simulated and theoretical frequencies
of the output signal relative to the bias current I B 2 , where C is
tuned to be 5nF, 50nF and 500nF. It is found that the
simulation results provide accordance with the theoretical
analysis, as shown in (15).
40
IB2=52uA IB3=40uA IB5=90uA C=500nF
20
Current (µA)
.01
1 10 100
60 80 100 120
IB2 (A)
Figure. 12. The frequencies of the output signal relative to IB2 in the
square/triangular wave generator for various capacitances.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The current-mode square/triangular wave generator based
on MO-CTTA has been presented. The proposed circuit
description is very simple, its construction comprises only 2
MO-CTTAs and 1 grounded capacitor, whose output frequency
and magnitudes can be independently/electronically controlled.
Furthermore, the adjusting output amplitude of square-wave
does not affect that of triangular-wave. All of simulation
results confirm the theoretical analysis. The maximum power
consumption is approximately 3.27mW at ±1.5V power
supply.

0
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