Synthesis of current differencing transconductance amplifier-based current limiters and its applications

A synthesis of analog current limiter (CL) building blocks based on a current differencing transconductance amplifier (CDTA) is proposed. The breakpoint and the slope of the resulting transfer characteristic obtained from the proposed CDTA-based CL are electronically programmable through the external bias currents. To demonstrate versatility of the proposed electronically tunable CLs, some nonlinear applications to programmable current-mode precision full-wave rectifiers and piecewise-linear function approximation generators are also presented. PSPICE simulation and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed circuits. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company.