Almost all electronic circuits require a reference, be it voltage, current, or time. A well-designed reference is expected to provide a "stable" point that will be independent of the potential variations in its operating conditions. While there has been decades of extensive amount of creative work in the world of reference design, with the emergence of new applications, reference designers are now faced with new problems and design challenges. In this review paper, we focus on two emerging application domains, namely, extreme environment (EE) electronics and the internet of things (IoT). We briefly describe design challenges imposed by these applications on reference circuits implemented in standard technologies, and discuss some solutions.
展开▼
