An improved CMOS BICS for on-line testing

Dedicated to a wide range of power supplies current monitoring, a new version of a CMOS built-in current sensor is proposed. It takes advantage of the classical parasitic resistor attached to an interconnection layer, as well as to a feedback circuit with high static gain capability. Analysis and simulation reveal that the transducer is accurate, linear and transparent. Process dependencies are taken into account. The sensor was designed in a 0.6 /spl mu/m technology and its simulated characteristics are reported in this paper.