In analog circuits many sub circuits work together to generate all of the various dc

voltages and currents. These include Bias Circuits, Reference Circuits and Regulators.
A Bias Circuit generates the dc voltages required to keep transistors near some desired
operating point.
A transistor parameters change either from chip to chip or with changes in temperature,
so must the bias voltages.
A Reference Circuit generates a voltage or current of a known fixed absolute value
Regulator Circuit improves the quality of dc voltage or current usually decreasing the
noise
Unlike a reference circuit, dc outputs of a bias circuit may adjust to process and
temperature variations
Several approaches may be taken towards biasing
o To ensure that circuits are biased to permit constant voltage swings
o To ensure that constant currents are maintained
o To ensure that constant gain is maintained
Since bias circuits only support other analog circuits by providing their dc voltages, their
area and power consumption represents an overhead cost that a designer will want to
minimize. Hence, one bias circuit is shared by several sub circuits.
An important Practical consideration is therefore how to distribute the bias circuit
outputs without subjecting them to noise and inaccuracies due to component mismatches
across the chip.
Most of a bias circuits output will be the gate voltages used to bias current sources.
When distributing these bias voltages, any devices that are required to operate as a
current mirror, should be placed within the same subcircuit in close physical proximity to
one another to ensure good matching between those devices.
A Regulators main purpose is to produce a voltage which has low noise and from which
some current may be drawn
They are common when a critical Analog circuit must operate from the same supply as
other circuits. Digital circuits are major sources of power supply noise, so regulators are
commonly used in Analog-Digital circuits
The general approach is to use a feedback amplifier operating under noisy supply to
generate a quiet dc voltage that supplies the critical circuit, hence the regulated voltage is
generally less than regulators supply voltage.
Important specifications are the immunity of the regulators output to variations in supply
voltage and in load current








VOLTAGE REGULATION
A Voltage regulator produces a low noise dc voltage from which some current can be
drawn
Its primary use is to provide a quiet supply voltage to an analog circuit particularly in
environments when a noisy supply voltage will otherwise limit performance