The present invention provides a method and apparatus for compensating for temperature effects in the operation of semiconductor processes circuitry, such as reference circuits. The method operates on the realization that the second order effects such as "curvature" in the reference voltage variation over a temperature range is removed. The reference voltage variation over a temperature range can be represented as a straight line. This method provides for the trimming of the absolute voltage by scaling the reference voltage at a first temperature to the desired value by a temperature independent voltage. Then, at a second temperature, the output voltage slope is corrected by adding or subtracting a voltage which is always zero at the first temperature.