BASICS

Electronics for Starters (4)

Constant current sources
Designing electronic circuits usually starts with studying the data sheets of complex integrated circuits.
However, you shouldn’t loose sight of the fact that ICs incorporate a variety of basic circuits, which in
many cases you can also build with discrete transistors. Besides being educational, that’s a lot of fun!

By Burkhard Kainka (Germany) regardless of the voltage between the col- BF245. As explained in the inset, with this
lector and the emitter. This can be seen type of transistor you apply a negative volt-
from the output characteristics of a typical age to the gate to obtain the desired cur-
In the previous instalments of this course NPN transistor (Figure 1). rent. Figure 3 shows the output character-
we have already dealt with the current gain, istics of the BF245B with various values of
input characteristics and saturation behav- Figure 2 shows a constant current source gate-source voltage VGS. The drain current ID
iour of bipolar transistors. Now we expand built around a single transistor. It can be is fairly constant as long as the drain-source
our field of view to include field-effect tran- used with a wide range of supply voltages voltage VDS is not too low. The range of vari-
sistors. The various properties of transistors and with different numbers of LEDs wired ation of the BF245’s characteristics is simi-
can be utilised in a wide variety of circuits. in series. The collector current is nearly con- lar to that of the BC547, which is why the
In each case the interesting question is how stant. In technical terms, we say that the BF245 also has three gain classes (A, B and
you should design the circuit so it will reli- constant current source has a large differ- C). The BF245B has a specified drain cur-
ably do what it is suppose to do. Of course, ential internal resistance Ri, where Ri = dU/ rent of approximately 10 mA with zero gate
you also need to know the limits of what the dI. In this circuit the constant base current is voltage.
circuit can handle. provided by a separate voltage source.
You could also build a voltage regulator that The simple 10 mA current source shown in
generates a stable voltage (e.g. 3 V) from an Figure 4 is good enough for practical use,
A constant current source unstable supply voltage. However, you can’t as long as you can live with an actual cur-
Sometimes you need a constant current easily obtain a precisely defined current rent somewhere between 8 mA and 12 mA.
with the least possible dependence on sup- with this circuit. In particular, the tolerance In any case, it’s hard to beat this circuit for
ply voltage stability. For example, a LED range of the current gain makes it impos- simplicity, although it should be noted that
driven by a constant current source will sible to predict the exact collector current. the current is somewhat dependent on the
always have the same brightness, even drain-source voltage because the inter-
when the battery voltage drops. In theory nal resistance is not especially high at low
all you need for this is a single transistor in Using a BF245 JFET drain-source voltages.
a common-emitter circuit. If you drive the A similarly imprecise constant current
transistor with a constant base current, the source can be built with a junction field- What you need here is some sort of closed-
collector current will be nearly constant effect transistor (JFET), such as the type loop control that keeps the current con-

IC ID
(mA) (mA)
5 µA
VGS = 0 V
10
1.5
4 µA 1 ... 4 LEDs
- 0.5 V

1.0 3 µA
9 ... 12V - 1.0 V
1 mA 5
2 µA
- 1.5 V
0.5 330k
IB = 1 µA - 2.0 V
3 A BC547B
- 2.5 V
0 1V5
0 1 2 3 4 5 0
VCE (V) 0 10 VDS (V) 20

Figure 1. BC547B output characteristics. Figure 2. Constant current. Figure 3. BF245B output characteristics
(source: Philips).

40 04-2012 elektor
 BASICS

Soft LED blinker

This simple ATtiny13 ap- $regfile = „attiny13.dat“
plication implements an $crystal = 1200000
+5V
LED driver that causes Dim I As Byte
Dim D As Integer
the LED brightness to
slowly rise and fall re- Config Portb = Output
VCC PB2 PB1 PB0
LED
peatedly. Of course, you Config Timer0 = Pwm , Prescale = 1 , Compare
ATtiny13 could achieve the same A Pwm = Clear Down
100R

RES PB3 PB4 GND effect with a controlled

current source, but Do
100n BS170 standard practice in the For I = 40 To 215
microcontroller world If I < 128 Then
D = I
is exactly the opposite:
D = D * D
everything is either hard
End If
on or hard off — abso- If I > 127 Then
lutely binary. In order to achieve variable brightness in this situ- D = 255 - I
ation, you can use pulse width modulation (PWM). This involves D = D * D
switching an output alternatingly on and off in rapid sequence to End If
generate a pulse train that is so fast that you can’t see the individ- D = D / 64
ual pulses. Here the LED brightness depends on the ratio of the On Pwm0a = D
Waitms 60
and Off times. The ATtiny13 uses its internal Timer 1 for PWM out-
Next I
put; the PWM signal appears on the PB0 pin. Here we use a VMOS
Waitms 800
transistor type BS170 as a power driver. As you can see, the base Loop
resistor needed with a bipolar transistor is not required here.
End

stant. A simple way to implement this is to feedback. You can also set the value of the age at approximately 2.7 V, due to the
add a source resistor, as shown in Figure 5. current within wide limits by selecting the effect of its steep characteristic curve. As
This arrangement is often used to gener- value of the resistor. If you want to have a the base-emitter voltage is always approxi-
ate the gate bias voltage ‘automatically’. bit more than 1 mA, simply use a resistor mately 0.6 V, the voltage over the emitter
It also improves the stability of the output with a lower value. resistor is approximately 2.1 V. This resis-
current by increasing the internal resist- tor therefore determines the emitter cur-
ance. This works as follows: if the output rent. The collector current is only slightly
current increases, the voltage drop over Using a bipolar transistor less than the emitter current, which also
the source resistor also increases, caus- The circuit shown in Figure 6 is a simple includes the much smaller base current.
ing the gate voltage to be more negative constant current source built around an With negative feedback provided by the
relative to the source voltage. This acts to NPN transistor, which converts a constant emitter resistor, this circuit is almost
reduce the drain current. This circuit effec- voltage into a constant current. A Zener directly equivalent to the FET circuit shown
tively generates a simple form of negative diode at the input stabilises the base volt- in Figure 5. The only difference is that here
10k

1 ... 4 LEDs
1 ... 4 LEDs
4mA5

9 ... 12V 1 mA 9V
10 mA 9 ... 12V
D
BC547
G

BF245B 2V7
S BF245B
2V1
470R
2k7

2V7

Figure 4. A simple JFET Figure 5. Using a source resistor Figure 6. A constant current source
constant current source. to set the current. using a Zener diode.

elektor 04-2012 41
BASICS

Field-effect transistors
The two main classes of transistors are bipolar transistors and field-effect transistors (FETs). A
Source Gate Drain
field-effect transistor consists of a small piece of semiconductor material with only one type
of doping (either p or n). It has an isolated gate electrode, which alters the number of charge Metal contacts
Isolator
carriers in the region between the source and the drain when a voltage is applied to the gate.
This changes the conductivity in this region, which is called the channel. Depending on the
voltage on the gate, the concentration of charge carriers in the channel is either depleted or
enriched. The advantage of field-effect transistors is that they do not need a current to con-
trol the output current, but instead a voltage. Si crystal

The gate (G), source (S) and drain (D) terminals of a FET correspond to the base (B), emitter
(E) and collector (C) terminals of a bipolar transistor. There are numerous types of field-effect
transistors. Along with the junction FET, which has an isolating diode junction between the R
gate and the channel, there is another type (MOSFET) that has a metallic oxide isolating layer.
Like bipolar transistors, MOSFETs are available in two polarities, called n-type MOSFETs and
p-type MOSFETs according to the polarity of the source and drain voltages. MOSFETs are basic A
building blocks of many types of integrated circuits, especially computer ICs. Complementary
N-Channel-FET D
n-type and p-type MOSFETs are often used in the same IC, which is called CMOS technology.
G
Power MOSFETs are usually fabricated with a vertical structure and accordingly designated
VMOS. The following table provides a comparative overview of the specifications of a number S
U in V
of typical VMOS transistors:

Type N/P channel Imax Umax Pmax RDS-ON CGS CDG

BS107 N 150 mA 200 V 0.8 W 28 Ω 50 pF 4 pF 15

BS170 N 175 mA 60 V 0.8 W 5 Ω 60 pF 5 pF

ID
BS250 P 180 mA 45 V 0.8 W 14 Ω 60 pF 5 pF (mA)

10

BF245B
Junction field-effect transistors use a semiconductor junction to isolate the gate from body
of the transistor. This means that the gate voltage must always be negative, as otherwise the 5
GS junction would be biased into conduction. JFETS are classified as depletion-mode FETs
because charge carriers are normally present in the channel when no gate voltage is applied,
and they can be depleted by applying a voltage to the gate. If an increasingly negative voltage
0
is applied to the gate, the channel between the source and the drain is gradually pinched off -4 -2 VGS (V) 0

until the transistor stops conducting. Incidentally, this behaviour corresponds exactly to that
of a vacuum valve.

A typical example of this type of FET is the BF245, which is primarily intended to be used in high-frequency applications. It has a typical
transconductance of 5 mA/V, which means that changing the gate voltage by 1 V causes the drain current to change by 5 mA. The BF245B
has a typical cutoff voltage (zero drain current) of approximately –4 V and a drain current of approximately 10 mA with zero gate voltage.

you need a positive voltage source for the difference if you first fit a BC547A, then
10k

base, which makes the component count a BC547B and finally a BC547C. In other
a bit higher. However, the good news is words, you can use whatever version you
that the BC547 is cheaper and it provides happen to have in your parts tray. Another
9V better regulation in this circuit. The nega- tip: if you don’t have a suitable Zener diode
BC547 tive feedback is so effective with this cir- handy, you can replace it with a forward-
cuit that you can scarcely measure any biased LED and still obtain good results.
BC547
0V6
100R

Test the results for yourself with a new bat-

Figure 7. A constant current source tery and with a nearly discharged battery,
with two transistors. or with an adjustable power supply. The LED

42 04-2012 elektor
 BASICS

Quiz
You want to power three white If you send us the correct answers, you have a chance of winning a
1-watt power LEDs from a 12 V Minty Geek Electronics 101 Kit.
lead-acid battery. The LEDs have a Send you answer code (composed of a series of three letters corre-
3x
specified forward voltage of 3.4 V 1k 1 W LED sponding to your selected answers) by e-mail to
3V4 / 350mA
and a specified operating current of basics@elektor.com.
350 mA. You want to use a constant
Please enter only the answer code in the Subject line of your email.
current source to provide the correct
12V6 The deadline for sending answers is April 30, 2012.
current. The circuit uses a BD135
BD135
power transistor, which can be at-
All decisions are final. Employees of the publishing companies forming part of the Elektor Inter-
Rx
tached to a heat sink if necessary. BC547B national Media group of companies and their family member are not eligible to participate.
The battery voltage can rise as high
as 14 during charging and drop as
low as 11 V during discharge. The
circuit should operate properly within this range. The current source The correct solution code for the quiz in
should supply a current close to 350 mA, but in no case more than the February 2012 edition is ‘CDH’.
350 mA. At this relatively high current, you can assume that the base- Here are the explanations:
emitter voltage is approximately 0.7 V.
1) Answer ‘C’ is correct. When you touch the contacts, the (small)
capacitor charges relatively quickly. The two transistors conduct and
1) You have three choices available for resistor Rx. light up the LED. Due to the high gain of the Darlington circuit, the base
Which one would you use? resistance could be even greater than 10 MΩ, but resistors with such
A) 100 Ω high values are difficult to obtain. The capacitor discharges very slowly,
B) 47 Ω with a time constant of 10 s. However, the LED continues to emit light
C) 22 Ω for much longer than 10 s.
2) Both transistors are in the B class and have similar current gains in
2) You measure a battery voltage of exactly 12.6 V, and the the range of 200 to 450. Their current gains multiply, so the effective
voltage over each of the LEDs is 3.4 V. current gain lies in the range of approximately 40,000 to approximately
How high is the efficiency of the circuit?
200,000. The figure of 100,000 is close to the middle of this range, so
D) 81% answer ‘D’ is correct.
E) 52%
3) The current gain with two NPN transistors would lie in the same range,
F) 99%
and the junction voltages at saturation are the same: the base-emitter
voltage is approximately 0.6 V, and the collector-emitter voltage is
3) You measure a battery voltage of exactly 14 V, and the approximately 0.1 V. However, there is a difference at the input. With
voltage over each of the LEDs is 3.4 V. If the current is
two transistors of the same type, you need twice the usual base-emitter
350 mA, how much power must the BD135 dissipate?
voltage (i.e. approximately 1.2 V) to cause the transistors to conduct.
G) Approximately 0.5 W
Only one base-emitter voltage (approximately 0.6 V) is necessary with
H) Approximately 1 W
the complementary circuit. ‘H’ is therefore the correct answer.
I) Approximately 3 W

brightness should remain nearly the same emitter resistor is too high, the left-hand rent flows in both cases. This current source
as long as the battery isn’t completely flat, transistor reduces the base current until is quite practical and provides a current of
and an ammeter should show a constant everything is as it should be. approximately 6 mA.
collector current. (120004)
The current provided by a constant current
Another commonly used type of constant source is not only independent of supply
current source uses a second transistor in voltage variations, but also independent
place of the LED. In this case the reference of the voltage drop over the load. You can
voltage is effectively the base-emitter volt- use the switch in the circuit shown in Fig-
age (around 0.6 V) of the left-hand transis- ure 7 to drive either one or two LEDs with
tor in Figure 7. If the voltage drop over the the constant current source. The same cur-

elektor 04-2012 43