A built-in current sensor using thin-film transistors

A simple current mirror using TFTs with input terminals which are capacitively coupled to the TFT gate, is used in this work, to design a built-in current sensor (BICS). The important feature in this application is that the voltage drop across the sensing TFT device can be reduced to almost zero value, while preserving transistor operation in the saturation region. This makes the proposed BICS appropriate for TFT applications without affecting the circuit operation. It also results in adequate linearity for the current monitoring, making the structure applicable to digital as well as to analog and mixed-signal circuit testing.