Int. J. Electron. Commun.

(AE) 62 (2008) 114121

www.elsevier.de/aeue
The inverting second generation current conveyors as universal
building blocks
Ahmed M. Soliman
Electronics and Communication Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt
Received 18 October 2006; accepted 4 March 2007
Abstract
The inverting second generation current conveyor ICCII includes two types. This paper concentrates on the two new types
of the inverting current conveyor namely ICCII+ and ICCII. Although it may seem that there is only minor difference
between the two types, there is a signicant difference as will be evident from some applications considered in this paper.
Both the ICCII+ and the ICCII are universal building blocks as will be demonstrated in this paper.
2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Current conveyors; Inverting current conveyors; Analog lters
1. Introduction
The inverting second generation current conveyor (ICCII)
was rst introduced in [1] as a new block to the current con-
veyor family to obtain and design current-mode circuits from
their voltage-mode counterparts [2,3]. This active building
block can be easily implemented with CMOS technology.
The symbolic representation of the ICCII with both of its
two types is shown in Fig. 1. The relation between terminal
voltages and currents is given by [1]

I
Y
V
X
I
Z

0 0 0
1 0 0
0 1 0

V
Y
I
X
V
Z

. (1)
That is the voltage at terminal X is the inversion of the
voltage at terminal Y. The positive sign in the third row
applies to the ICCII+, whereas the negative sign applies to
the ICCII. The proper sign will be written at the Z terminal
E-mail address: asoliman@ieee.org.
1434-8411/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aeue.2007.03.006
to distinguish between the two types. It should be noted that
both types of the ICCII are considered as special cases from
the two output differential voltage conveyor (DVC) intro-
duced in [4]. The ICCII+ is also a special case from the
differential difference current conveyor (DDCC) introduced
in [5]. Therefore, several CMOS realizations of the ICCII+
are given as special cases from the CMOS realizations of
the DVC or the DDCC in [4,5]. A very attractive CMOS
realization of the ICCII which avoids the use of current
mirrors in the transfer of current from X to Z is shown in
Fig. 2(a) [1]. A CMOS realization of the DVC is shown in
Fig. 2(b) [4] which with Y1 grounded realizes both the
ICCII+ and the ICCII.
2. The ICCII+ and the ICCII as universal
building blocks
There are many universal active building blocks that
have been introduced in the literature [611]. It was shown
in [6] that any circuit function can be realized with the
CCII, which was called in [6] as the three terminal nullor.
A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121 115
Other universal building blocks include the rst, second and
third generation current conveyors, as well as all the nine
classes of the operational ampliers [10].
Although the ICCII+ and the ICCII are not realizable
directly using nullators and norators as was demonstrated
in [1], they are similar to the CCII+ in that respect. They
require new types of singular elements that were introduced
in [1,12] and known as the voltage mirror and the current
mirror. It is desirable here to show that both the ICCII+ and
the ICCII are universal building blocks.
Fig. 1. Symbolic representation of ICCII.
Fig. 2. (a) CMOS realization of the ICCII [1]. (b) CMOS realization of the DVC [4].
Fig. 3 represents two alternative block diagram realiza-
tions of the CCII, from two ICCII+. Since the CCII can
be realized using the ICCII+ as shown in Fig. 3 and since
the CCII is a universal element, therefore, the ICCII+ is
also a universal element. The realization of CCII can also
be achieved using two ICCII in a similar topology as in
Fig. 3; therefore, the ICCII is also a universal building
block. Fig. 4 represents four alternative block diagram real-
izations of the ICCIIusing two ICCII+. Before discussing
the applications of each of the two types of the ICCII, it is
of interest to see how to realize an ICCII with control-
lable current gain from two ICCII or two ICCII+. Fig.
5 represents these two realizations of the ICCII having,
I
z
=I
x
R
1
/R
2
.
The ICCII can also be used in the realization of a
negative admittance using a single ICCII as shown in
Fig. 6. The circuits have the special feature that the current
116 A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121
Fig. 3. Two alternative realizations of the CCII from two ICCII+.
Fig. 4. Four alternative realizations of the ICCII from two ICCII+.
leaving port 2 equals the current entering port 1 which may
be useful in some applications.
It is worth noting that a oating negative impedance con-
verter (NIC) can also be realized with two ICCII as in the
cases of two CCII+ or two CCII [13,14]. It may seem
that both the ICCII+ and the ICCII are very similar in all
circuit applications; however, they are similar in some ap-
plications and completely different in other applications as
will be demonstrated in the next sections of this paper.
3. Applications of the ICCII+
As a rst application of the ICCII+ is in the realization
of balanced output differential integrators in a similar way
to the CCII+ and CCII [15]. Fig. 7 represents two alter-
native balanced output integrators using two ICCII+. The
integrator output voltage V
o
is given by
V
o
=
V
2
V
1
sCR
. (2)
The ICCII can be used in the same application result-
ing in the same V
o
with an opposite sign. In most applica-
tions in which the ICCII is used without any feedback the
ICCII+ and the ICCII can be both used as is the case
with the CCII+ and the CCII. As a second application of
the CCII+; consider the grounded one port circuit shown in
Fig. 8 in which the input port is the X terminal of the
ICCII+. The input admittance is given by
Y
in
=Y
1
+Y
2
+
Y
1
Y
2
Y
3
. (3)
It is seen that this is the equivalent circuit of the well-
known Ford and Girling op amp inductor circuit [16] which
was realized in [17] using the CCII. It should be noted that
a single ICCII cannot be used in this application as well
as a single CCII+ as they result in negative admittances.
It is seen that a parallel RL circuit is realizable from this
circuit by using a capacitor for Y
3
and conductors for Y
1
and Y
2
. A frequency-dependent negative resistor (FDNR) in
parallel with a capacitor is also realizable from this circuit by
using a conductance for Y
3
and capacitances for Y
1
and Y
2
.
A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121 117
The application of this non-ideal FDNR in the realization of
a low-pass lter [18] is the circuit shown in Fig. 9.
The voltage transfer function of this grounded-capacitor
low-pass lter is given by
V
LP
V
i
=
1
s
2
C
1
C
2
R
1
R
2
+s(C
1
+C
2
)R
1
+1
. (4)
For a specied
o
and Q, the design equations are given
by
C
1
=C
2
=C, (5)
R
2
=
2Q

o
C
and R
1
=
1
2Q
o
C
. (6)
Fig. 5. (a) Realization of ICCII with controllable current gain
from two ICCII. (b) Realization of ICCII with controllable
current gain from two ICCII+.
Fig. 6. Two alternative realizations of a negative admittance using ICCII. (a) Current driven and (b) voltage driven.
The
o
and the Q passive sensitivities are given by
S

o
R
1
=S

o
R
2
=S

o
C
1
=S

o
C
2
=0.5, (7)
S
Q
R
1
=S
Q
R
2
=0.5, (8a)
S
Q
C
1
=S
Q
C
2
=0.5 +
C
2
C
1
+C
2
. (8b)
For the equal C design, the Q sensitivities with respect to
C
1
and C
2
equal to zero. It should be noted that the circuit
shown in Fig. 9 cannot be used with the ICCII.
4. Applications of the ICCII+ and ICCII
A very important application of both ICCII+ and ICCII
in realizing a grounded C band-pass low-pass lter is consid-
ered in this section. From Fig. 9, it is observed that the cur-
rent in the resistor R
2
has a band-pass nature. To utilize this
current and convert it to a voltage, a second ICCII is needed.
Fig. 10 (a) represents an inverting band-pass low-pass lter
using both types of ICCII. The low-pass response with both
polarities is available at nodes X and Y of the ICCII+:
V
BP
V
i
=
sC
1
R
2
s
2
C
1
C
2
R
1
R
2
+sC
1
R
1
+1
, (9)
V
LP
V
i
=
1
s
2
C
1
C
2
R
1
R
2
+sC
1
R
1
+1
. (10)
For a specied
o
and Q, the design equations are given
by
C
2
=QC
1
, (11)
R
1
=
1

o
C
2
and R
2
=
1

o
C
1
. (12)
Fig. 10(b) represents a non-inverting band-pass low-pass
lter using both types of ICCII. The low-pass response with
both polarities is available at nodes X and Y of the ICCII.
The design equations are the same as given above.
118 A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121
Fig. 7. Two alternative balanced output differential integrators using two single outputs ICCII+.
Fig. 8. Ford Girling equivalent circuit using ICCII+.
Fig. 9. Non-inverting and inverting low-pass lter using ICCII+.
It should be noted that the band-pass low-pass lters based
on the FDNR circuit and using the classical conveyors were
given in [19] and it uses two identical CCII types that is either
two CCII or two CCII+. Another important application
for using both ICCII+ and ICCII is in the realization of
gyrators which may have some useful applications and are
not discussed here to limit the paper length.
Fig. 10. (a) Inverting band-pass and low-pass lter using ICCII+
and ICCII. (b) Non-inverting band-pass and low-pass lter using
ICCII and ICCII+.
5. Applications of the ICCII
The ICCIIcan be used in realizing high input impedance
lters. Two alternative grounded C rst-order all pass lters
are shown in Fig. 11.
For the circuit of Fig. 11(a)
V
o
V
i
=
sCR 1
2(sCR +1)
. (13)
A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121 119
Fig. 11. (a) High input impedance grounded C rst-order all-pass
circuit using ICCII. (b) An alternative high input impedance
grounded C rst-order all-pass circuit using ICCII.
Fig. 12. High input impedance universal lter using ICCII.
For the circuit of Fig. 11(b)
V
o
V
i
=
sCR 1
2(sCR +1)
. (14)
The high input impedance universal lter shown in
Fig. 12 realizes all-pass or notch at V
o3
, low-pass at V
o1
and band-pass at V
o2
. Applying the RC: CR transformation
to the lower part of the circuit results in a high-pass re-
sponse at V
o1
. The circuit topology is similar to the CCII
introduced in [20] and the low-pass band-pass part using
CCII, was also given in [21]. It should be noted that this
single ICCII realizes complex poles and the design equa-
Fig. 13. (a) Inductor circuit using two ICCII (current driven).
(b) Inductor circuit using two ICCII (voltage driven).
Fig. 14. The high-pass lter characteristics realized with the
grounded inductor of Fig. 13(a).
tions for a specied
o
and Q and for the minimum passive
sensitivity [20] are given by
C
1
=C
2
=C, (15)
R =
1
2
o
CQ
. (16)
120 A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121
For a notch response, the necessary condition is
a =
b
b +2
. (17)
For an all-pass response, the necessary condition is
a =
b
b +4
. (18)
A very important application of the ICCII is in the real-
ization of an ideal grounded inductor using two ICCII as
shown in Fig. 13(a) and (b). The necessary condition is that
G
3
=G
1
+G
2
. (19)
The ICCII at the input acts as an NIC resulting in a pos-
itive ideal grounded inductor at the input port. It is worth
noting that if the resistor R
3
is removed from the circuits of
Fig. 13, then a oating non-ideal inductor is obtained at the
input with magnitude equals to L=CR
1
R
2
, in parallel with
an equivalent resistor equal to R
1
in parallel with R
2
[17,18].
It is worth noting that the two ICCII used in each of
Fig. 13(a) and (b) realizes a CCII similar to the realiza-
tions given in Fig. 3 and which uses two ICCII+.
As an application for the inductor based on Fig. 13(a), a
high-pass lter was realized using the ICCII of Fig. 2(a).
The circuit components of Fig. 13(a) are taken as R
1
=
R
2
= 1 k, C = 10 pF, resulting in L = 10 H in parallel
with R = 0.5 k. The maximally at magnitude response
high-pass lter was constructed from this inductor resistor
circuit in series with C=20 pF. Fig. 14 represents the Spice
simulation results which are in good agreement with the
ideal simulated one.
6. Conclusion
The inverting second generation current conveyor ICCII
includes two types. This paper concentrates on the two new
types of the inverting current conveyor namely ICCII+ and
ICCII. Although it may seem that there is only minor dif-
ference between the two types, there is a signicant differ-
ence as is evident from some applications considered in this
paper. Both the ICCII+ and the ICCII are universal build-
ing blocks as was proved in this paper. It is hoped that the
few applications considered in this paper demonstrates the
similarities and differences between the ICCII and the clas-
sical CCII family.
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Ahmed M. Soliman was born in Cairo,
Egypt, on November 22, 1943. He re-
ceived the B.Sc. degree with honors
from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in
1964, the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from
the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
PA, U.S.A., in 1967 and 1970, respec-
tively, all in Electrical Engineering.
He is currently Professor Electron-
ics and Communications Engineering Department, Cairo Univer-
sity, Egypt.
A. M. Soliman / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 62 (2008) 114121 121
From September 1997 to September 2003, Dr. Soliman served
as Professor and Chairman Electronics and Communications En-
gineering Department, Cairo University, Egypt.
From 1985 to 1987, Dr. Soliman served as Professor and Chairman
of the Electrical Engineering Department, United Arab Emirates
University, and from 1987 to 1991 he was the Associate Dean of
Engineering at the same University.
He has held visiting academic appointments at San Francisco State
University, Florida Atlantic University and the American Univer-
sity in Cairo.
He was a visiting scholar at Bochum University, Germany (Sum-
mer 1985) and with the Technical University of Wien, Austria
(Summer 1987). In 2005, Dr. Soliman was invited to visit Tai-
wan and gave lectures at Chung Yuan Christian University and at
National Central University of Taiwan. Dr. Soliman gave also a
lecture at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Dr. Soliman is a Member of the Editorial Board of the IET Cir-
cuits, Devices and Systems.
Dr. Soliman is a Member of the Editorial Board of Analog Inte-
grated Circuits and Signal Processing. Dr. Soliman served as As-
sociate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems
I (Analog Circuits and Filters) from December 2001 to December
2003 and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Circuits, Systems
and Signal Processing from January 2004 till now.
In 1977, Dr. Soliman was decorated with the First Class Science
Medal, from the President of Egypt, for his services to the eld
of Engineering and Engineering Education.