Latest Amplifiers Technical Articles

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Op Amp and Transistor-based Analog Square Wave Generator Design

Analog oscillator circuits are commonly used to create square wave clock signals for the timing of synchronous circuits. This article covers the theory, design, and key features of analog square wave generators.

November 13, 2022 by Nicholas St. John

Electronic Component Aging—the Aging Effects of Resistors and Op-amps

Learn about the aging behavior of resistors and amplifiers using temperature calculations and the Arrhenius equation to understand resistor drift, resistor stability, and op-amp drift.

August 28, 2022 by Dr. Steve Arar

Understanding Charge Amplifier Errors—Time Constant and Drift

Learn about charge amplifier limitations at low frequencies, the effects of time constants, and how the drift phenomenon can also introduce errors in low-frequency measurements.

May 15, 2022 by Dr. Steve Arar

Processing a Piezoelectric Accelerometer Output Using a Charge Amplifier

Learn about charge amplifiers which are used for charge output conversion of a piezoelectric sensor into a usable voltage signal.

May 08, 2022 by Dr. Steve Arar

What is it About Audio Distortion? Understanding Nonlinearity

Learn about how system nonlinearity creates distortion in audio signals that impacts the sounds we hear. We will examine sine waves, harmonics, and intermodulation distortion.

April 10, 2022 by John Woodgate

PCB Layout Techniques for Reducing Harmonic Distortion of a Differential ADC Driver

Summary

February 19, 2021 by Dr. Steve Arar

How to Use Decoupling Capacitor Placement to Reduce Harmonic Distortion

Learn how to reduce second harmonic distortion by following some guidelines for placing decoupling capacitors in your PCB layout.

February 12, 2021 by Dr. Steve Arar

Reducing Second Harmonic Distortion with Symmetrical PCB Layout

Need a low-distortion ADC interface? In this article, we'll discuss how to reduce 2nd harmonic distortion by using symmetric PCB layout.

January 18, 2021 by Dr. Steve Arar

The History of Vacuum Tubes: An Era Away

While semiconductor devices make possible the lightweight 'gadgets' we enjoy, our electronic world was built on devices that operated on a different scale. Let's take a look at vacuum tubes!

December 11, 2020 by Marie Christiano

Construction of a Guitar Amplifier

This article explains the theory and the construction of the circuit of a 10W practice guitar amplifier.

November 29, 2020 by Teja Sai Marellapudi

How to Design a Precision Current Pump with Op-Amps

This article discusses a voltage-controlled current-source circuit that requires only two op-amps and a handful of resistors.

October 16, 2020 by Robert Keim

Basic Fundamentals of Lock-In Amplifiers

This article discusses the theory fundamentals of lock-in amplifiers.

June 04, 2020 by Ignacio de Mendizábal

Achieving High DC Precision Using Composite Op-Amps

In Part 5 of this series on composite amplifiers, we'll discuss how to achieve higher DC precision.

February 25, 2020 by Dr. Sergio Franco

How to Increase Slew Rate in Op Amps

Learn how to get faster composite op-amp dynamics by raising the slew rate.

February 24, 2020 by Dr. Sergio Franco

Achieving Faster Composite Op-Amp Dynamics by Expanding the Frequency Bandwidth

This is Part 3 of the series of articles about composite amplifiers. In this section, we are going to show how to achieve faster op-amp dynamics by expanding the frequency bandwidth.

February 23, 2020 by Dr. Sergio Franco

Voltage Buffer Simulation in PSpice: Boosting the Output Current Drive of Op-Amps

Learn how simulating a voltage buffer can help you implement it more effectively to boost the output current drive of an op-amp.

February 21, 2020 by Dr. Sergio Franco

How to Boost the Output Current Drive Capability of an Op-Amp

In the first part of this series on composite amplifiers, we'll investigate one method of boosting an op-amp’s output current drive capability.

February 20, 2020 by Dr. Sergio Franco

Assessing the ADC SNR and SFDR for Communications Systems

In this article, we will see how we can determine the SFDR for an ADC used in a radio receiver. Also, we’ll examine the ADC SNR requirement for this application.

December 22, 2019 by Dr. Steve Arar

Introduction to the Synchronous Demodulation

This article will discuss the basic idea behind the synchronous demodulation technique.

December 11, 2019 by Dr. Steve Arar

Integrator Limitations: The Op-Amp’s Gain Bandwidth Product

In this first part of a series of articles, we investigate the role of the op-amp’s gain-bandwidth product (GBP).

August 28, 2019 by Dr. Sergio Franco