Neuron-MOS current mirror circuit and its application to multi-valued logic
A neuron-MOS transistor (nu MOS) is applied to current-mode multi-valued logic (MVL) circuits. First, a novel low-voltage and low-power nu MOS current mirror is presented. Then, a threshold detector and a quaternary T-gate using the proposed nu MOS current mirrors are proposed. The minimum output voltage of the nu MOS current mirror is decreased by VT (threshold voltage), compared with the conventional double cascode current mirror. The nu MOS threshold detector is built on a nu MOS current comparator originally composed of nu MOS current mirrors. It has a high output swing and sharp transfer characteristics. The gradient of the proposed comparator output in the transfer region can be increased 6.3-fold compared with that in the conventional comparator. Along with improved operation of the novel current comparator, the discriminative ability of the proposed nu MOS threshold detector is also increased. The performances of the proposed circuits are validated by HSPICE with Motorola 1.5 mu m CMOS device parameters. Furthermore, the operation of a nu MOS current mirror is also confirmed through experiments on test chips fabricated by VDEC*. The active area of the proposed nu MOS current mirror is 63 mu m x 51 mu m.
current mirror multi-valued logic neuron-mos transistor threshold detector t-gate current comparator current-mode circuit integrated circuit