Transistor current mirror circuit


Posted on Feb 4, 2014

The bases and emitters are tied together, so the base-emitter voltages are equal. Since we assume the transistors themselves are identical, equal Vbe means equal current into the base. And equal current into the base means equal current from collector to emitter. Thus by setting the current through one, by the selection of voltage and resistance,


Transistor current mirror circuit
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you also set the current through the other. One way of doing an overcurrent detector would be to put a second resistor in the mirrored leg, and measure the voltage across that resistor. If it rises above some fixed level, the current must have exceeded your setpoint. I`m not immediately sure why that would be better than measuring the voltage on the primary leg, though. At first glance, this seems like a pretty round-about way of doing an overcurrent limit. Thanks Remiel. I have a supply and the load between which this circuit is connected to monitor the safe current that is sourced by the supply. So I need to use this circuit to detect the over current drawn from the supply. So is there anyway that i can do with this Durgaprasad Mar 20 `13 at 17:02 Yes, you could put a resistor between the secondary source and the secondary transistor, and measure the voltage across that resistor. But again, a shunt resistor in the primary would be simpler and should have nearly identical effect. Stephen Collings Mar 20 `13 at 18:21 Current mirrors are often used in overcurrent protection because it allows a shift of the voltage reference from Vin to Gnd. Use a high-side current mirror (PNP transistors instead of NPN) and put the "secondary load" between the collector of the secondary transistor and ground. Now you have a ground-referenced voltage that`s proportional to the high-side load current. Note that the value of the resistor can be...




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