Question:

What is the singal at OUT? Assume resistors and capacitors are exact and the circuit is in steady state. Find the solution to within 1%? Opamp Details:

1mV input offset Rail-rail input and output CMOS inputs 10 MHz gain*bandwidth minimum

Input Details:

2 MHz sine wave 500 mV peak to peak 1V DC component

Show Answer Tags: amplifier, circuit analysis, feedback, gain, opamp Permalink: Opamp Circuit

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By Alec (+48) 1Score: 1 year ago: This gives a very informative and relatively succinct example/explanation of some practical nonideal op amp performance expectations, well done. Id wager that there are a lot of engineers who use op amps that never (maybe theyre fortunate not to have to) think about things like GBWP, open-loop gain roll off with frequency from the listed DC value, noise gain accuracy dependence on remaining available loop gain, etc. My final numbers came out a little different than yours. I assumed that if the minimum GBWP was 10Mhz then the minimum open-loop gain would be 10 at 1Mhz (assuming single pole roll off), so on a logarithmic scale I figured at 2Mhz you could count on at least a minimum of 7. But then I guess thats just nitpicking and not really the point of the exercise. I had one question though. Is the capacitor C3 (DC block in the feedback network) actually necessary? Wouldnt the circuit operate the same if C3 was shorted out? The importance to AC couple the input and output with C1 and C4 is obvious, but I think Im missing somethings as to why C3 is needed. I would think it would just add circuit start up time by forcing the inverting input to have to use the AC signal to servo up to the same 2.5V DC offset on the non-inverting input. But maybe that delay keeps power supply transients (since the bias comes from the supply) from getting to the output? Maybe there is some sort of phase response advantage I dont see? Maybe its something much more obvious and Im just thinking too much?

By Olin Lathrop (+147) 2Score: 1 year ago: At high frequencies, the opamp gain is inversely proportional to frequency. You can model a opamp well enough for most purposes as a very high gain followed by a single pole low pass filter. Note again that this means gain is inversely proportional to frequency once your above the rolloff point. This is also the same as saying that it rolls off 12 dB per octave or 20 dB per decade. Since gain and frequency are inversely proportional, we can have a value called the gain bandwidth product, since the gain times the bandwidth is the same over the rolloff region. You can also think of this as the frequency at which the gain goes down to 1. In this example the gain*bandwidth product was a minimum of 10 MHz, or gain * frequency = 10 MHz. Therefore gain = 10 MHz / frequency. At 10 MHz the gain is 1, at 1 MHz it is 10, and at 2 MHz it is 5.

You can do the same calculation logarithmically in dB if you like. The rolloff slope is 20 dB per decade (single pole low pass filter). 2 MHz is Log(10MHz/2MHz) = .7 decades down from the unit gain point. .7 decade x 20 dB/decade = 14 dB. The voltage gain of 14 dB is 10**(14/20) = 5. Same answer again. As for C3, it prevents the DC offset of 1/2 the supply voltage to be multiplied by the opamp. Note that the opamp is powered from 0 to 5 volts, not symmetric positive and negative rails. The DC level at the positive input is 2.5V. If C3 were shorted, the reference for the feedback divider would be 0V, so the 2.5V bias would be multiplied by the overall gain, which would cause the output to clip at the positive power rail.

By Olin Lathrop (+147) 0Score: 1 year ago: Oops, I meant to say above that a single pole low pass filter rolls off at 6dB per octave, not 12dB.

By Alec (+48) 1Score: 1 year ago: Ah, originally I just considered the -20dB per decade roll off rule for a single pole response, I always forget about complimentary -6dB per octave rule. That makes sense that doubling the frequency equals half the gain (10 at 1MHz then 5 at 2Mhz). I estimated 7 because I was doing an eyeball guess from how semi-log paper is drawn out, thanks for the correction. Now I see how C3 keeps the output of the op amp maintain a DC offset of 2.5V same as both inputs, and keeps the feedback network only dividing down the AC portion of the output. I had to think about it and have someone argue with me that not having C3 there would require the output to reach a DC offset of 2.5V multiplied by the noise gain (hence above 5 volts resulting in hitting the power rail as you mentioned). Kudos again on the original post. This is a useful building block circuit for isolating and amplifying AC coupled signals when you want to use a single supply op amp and need to add the DC offset yourself in order to do it. Login or Register to post comments. Browse Previous Quizes

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