apparatus disclosed herein implement a fast transient precision current limiter such as may be included in an electronic voltage regulator . the current limiter includes two current sense element / current clamp control loops . a fast response time control loop first engages and clamps a current spike . a precision control loop then engages to more accurately clamp the output current to a programmed set point . the precision clamping loop includes an inner loop to linearize the precision current sense element . the inner loop forces the drain - to - source voltage of the precision sense element to track the vds of the regulator pass element . a more precise clamping operation results . overall speed is not sacrificed as the fast response time clamping loop operates in parallel to protect circuitry while the precision clamping loop engages .