Patent 7466166 was granted and assigned to Panasonic on December, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A current driver generates an output current according to an input signal. The current driver includes R current copy circuits and an output current generator where R is a natural number. Each of the current copy circuits stores a current having a given current value and input from the outside in a storage mode and outputs the stored current in an output mode. The output current generator obtains a current or the sum of currents from a non-negative integer number of the current copy circuits selected in accordance with the input signal, and thereby generates an output current.