Offset v_ v+ V EE

1 2 3 4

8 7 6 5

No Connection V CC vout Offset

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Figure 1: The pin connections for the 741 and the 411 op-amp.

33-228

Electronics

Spring 2011
Version of March 22, 2011

Lab 8: Introduction to Operational Ampliers

Reference Reading: Chapter 6, Sections 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4. Time: Two and one half lab periods will be devoted to this lab. Goals: 1. Understand the use of negative feedback to control amplication 2. Understand the concept of slew rate (a) Be able to dene slew rate (b) Be able to measure slew rate (c) Understand how nite slew rate puts limitations on the use of operational ampliers 3. Be able to design and construct the following op-amp circuits: (a) Voltage follower (b) Inverting amplier 4. Observe the eect of an op-amps nite gain

Introduction

Read text sections 6.1 through 6.4 of your textbook before starting. For reference, the pin conguration for the 741 and the 411 op-amps is shown below. You will use the proto-board power supply to power the op-amp. You should print out (in advance) the specication sheets for the op-amps, which are available on the Labs web page. You may want to compare your results to the specications. 1

Preliminary Lab Questions

The work in this section must be completed and signed o by an instructor before you start working on the lab. Do this work in your lab book.

vin R in

Figure 2: The inverting amplier circuit.


Rf

vo

1. Write down the two Golden Rules of Op-Amp operation.

2. Look at Figure 2. What must the voltage at the negative input of the Op-amp be? What is the voltage drop across Rin ? What is the voltage drop across Rf ?

Equipment and Parts

In this lab we will utilize the following equipment. This equipment is located at your lab station. 1. The Tektronix TDS 2012B digital oscilloscope. 2. Two P2220 probes for the oscilloscope. 3. One USB memory stick which is no larger than 2GB. 4. The Interplex Electronics 1200CA-1 power brick and bus connector. 5. The Stanford Research Systems DS335 signal generator. 6. One BNC to alligator cable. 7. The Metex 4650 digital meter. 8. The Global Specialities PB10 protoboard. You will also need the following components in order to carry out this lab. It makes more sense to get them as you need them, rather than all at once before the start of the lab. 1. 1 k resistor. 3

2. 10 k resistor. 3. One 411 OpAmp 4. One 741 OpAmp

5. Additional resistors and capacitors you choose to match your circuit designs.

4
4.1

Procedure
Voltage Follower

Use a 741 op amp to build a voltage follower as in Fig. 3. Note that, as is conventional, the power pin connections, +VCC and VEE , are not indicated on the diagram (but you need to include them) and we use no connection to the oset null pins.

vin

vo

Figure 3: The voltage follower circuit.

Slew Rate: Start by investigating one of the serious limitations of many op-amps: the slew rate. The slew rate is the maximum rate at which the output voltage can change. (Typical units would be volts per microsecond.) The eect of an op-amps slew rate limitation is illustrated for two output waveforms in Fig. 4. 1. Measure the slew rate of the 741 by using a square wave input and observing the output of the follower. At an input amplitude of, say, Vpp = 5 V, the output square wave will not change abruptly, but will change to the new value by a straight line with nite slope. The slope of the line gives the slew rate. You will have to adjust the DS335 square wave period (and scope time scale) to nd where you can observe this phenomenon. Are the slew rates on the rising and falling edge of the square wave the same?

slope = slew rate

(a)

output if not slew-rate limited

(b)

slope = slew rate

Slope limited by op-amp maximum slew rate

Figure 4: Slew rate limitations illustrated for square wave and sinusoidal wave inputs to an op amp. 2. To understand the connection between slew rate and frequency response, calculate the maximum rate of change of a sinusoidal voltage, v(t) = V cos t. Use this result to nd the relation between amplitude and frequency for which this maximum rate of change equals the 741s slew rate. What is the maximum frequency (in Hz) you can use without encountering slew rate distortion if the signal is 5 V peak-to-peak? If it is 1 V ? If it is 0.1 V ?

3. Make the same measurements for the 411 op-amp and compare to the 741. 5

Gain: It is dicult to measure the open loop gain of even the 741 Op-amp because it is so large. However, at high frequencies, the open-loop gain rolls o and becomes measurable. 1. Compare the input and output voltages a follower built using the 741 Op-amp over the entire frequency range of the DS335. Use an input of Vpp = 0.1 V . Make a Bode plot of the gain, |G(f )|, and a plot of the phase shift, (f ), between input and output signals. Why might we want to use a small input voltage for this measurement?

2. Observe the eect of larger input voltages. You should see distortion in the output at high frequencies when the input signal exceeds the slew rate. 3. Repeat the previous measurements using the 411 Op-amp. From the above small-signal measurements, you can determine the high-frequency openloop gain, A(f ) of the 741 (i.e., the dierential gain), but some analysis is required. We walk through that as follows. You should understand all the steps here. The output voltage is vo = A(f ) (v+ v ) . (1) The relation between the op-amps open loop gain A(f ) and the actual gain of the circuit G(f ) depends on the negative feedback loop in the circuit. In a voltage follower circuit, input (vin ) is connected to the non-inverting input (v+ ) and the output is connected directly to inverting input (v ). Thus vo = A(f ) (vin vo ) or G(f ) = G(f ) = This equation can be inverted to give A(f ) = G(f ) . 1 G(f ) 6 (4) vo vin A(f ) A(f ) + 1 (2)

(3)

Keep in mind that all bold faced quantities are complex numbers. To determine | A(f ) |, you can write G in terms of a magnitude and phase as G(f ) = | G(f ) | ej(f ) . From this, we can obtain A(f ) = G . 2G cos (6) (5)

1+

G2

For both the 741 and the 411 op-amps, make a Bode plot of A(f ) in the region where you can measure it from (4) or (6), when G 1 and 0, A is large and dicult to measure quantitatively) and determine the slope of the straight line that best ts the high frequency region of the results. Find the frequency, fT at which the magnitude of the open loop gain A(f ) is unity. Follower Input and Output Impedances: It is also dicult to measure either the input or output impedances of this circuit. Use the 411 Op-amp for the following. You do not need to carry out these measurements using the 741. 1. To show that the output impedance is small, observe the gain at f = 1 kHz with an output load of 10 . Note that the maximum output current of the 411 is about 20 mA, so limit the output voltage to less than 200 mV . Can you calculate the output impedance from this measurement? Is it large or small?

2. To demonstrate the large input impedance, insert an 8.2 M resistance in series with the input and compare the gain at f = 1 kHz to that measured with a direct input from the DS335.

What does this say about the input impedance of the follower?

4.2

The Inverting Amplier

Here, you will construct and test two inverting amplier circuits, one with gain, G = 10 and one with G = 100. The tests include determination of the DC gain (for the G = 10 case only) and a comparison of the frequency responses of the two circuits (these will also be compared to that of the voltage follower measured previously). You will use a xed input resistance of 1 k and the only the 741 Op-amp.

vin R in

Figure 5: The inverting voltage amplier circuit. The zeroth-order analysis of the circuit shown in Fig. 5 goes as follows: 1. The op-amp gain is innite, its input resistance is innite. Then, the feedback resistance must keep the inverting input at ground. Thus, iin = vin /Rin = if = vo /Rf . The minus sign indicates that vo must be below ground for positive vin in order for the current to ow from ground (v ) to vo . 2. The above equations can be solved for the gain to yield that vo G = vin Rf G = . Rin 8


Rf

vo

(7) (8)

3. Of course, you want to use an input resistor which is larger than your source resistance. 4. Within the limitations of the op-amp to supply current and voltage, the output resistance is very low as before. Design and build the G = 10 amplier: 1. Measure the DC output voltage as you vary a DC input voltage. Vary the input so as to make the output cover the full range of 12V. The slope of this plot yields the DC gain. Does your plot pass through the origin? Does the output reach the supply voltages?

2. Measure and make a Bode plot of the frequency response of your amplier (you only need to measure the amplitude response, not the phase shift). Keep in mind, and avoid, the slew rate limitation of the 741 op amp. Plot 20 log G() on scales which will allow you to add the G = 100 measurements you will do next. Build the G = 100 amplier: 1. Measure the frequency (amplitude) response of your amplier. Add these data to the plot you began above. 4.2.1 The Behavior of the Gain

To understand what you see in the above measurements, we again have to go beyond the zeroth order analysis. In the above calculations, we assumed that the gain of our Op-amp (A) was innite, or very large. This led to us nding that the gain of our circuit is given as equation 8. We will refer to the is G , and write that G = Rf . Rin (9)

We now admit that the Op-amps gain is not innite (we already know it is reduced at high frequencies) but we keep the approximation that the input resistance is high. Thus, we still can approximate the behavior be saying that no current can ow into the input of the Op-amp. 9

From Figure 5, we have that v+ = 0 as it is connected to ground. Now in this approximation, we will not apply our Op-amp rule that v = v+ , but rather note that there is some voltage, v at the inverting input. The output voltage, vo is then given as the open-loop gain, A as vo = A() (v+ v ) . Thus, we have that vo = A() v . We can rewrite this as v = vo A() (12) (11) (10)

where, A() is the complex open-loop dierential gain of the Op-amp. We can also analyze the currents in the circuit. From the input, we have that iin = vin v Rin (13)

and since no current ows into the Op-amp, all this current goes through the feed-back resistor, if The feed back current can also be written as if = v vo . Rf (15) = iin . (14)

This is where we continue to assume that the input impedance is innite. We can now substitute for our unknown v , and the collect all the terms that include vo . Doing so, we nd vin = vo Rin 1 1 Rin + + Rf A() A() Rf . (16)

We now note that the actual gain is dened as G() = vo vin (17)

and recalling our denition of G from equation 9, we nd that G() = G A() A() + G + 1 . (18)

As long as |A| >> |G |, then we have that G = G , as we found from our simple calculation. However, as |A| becomes less than |G |, the gain, G becomes limited by the open-loop gain. We get G() = A() 1 + 1/Ginf ty 10 (19)

which in our limit is G() A() . (20)

This is almost independent of the intended G when this number is large. This is the result you should observe at high frequency. What you have measured is |G()| which should become equal to |A()| at high frequency. You should see that each circuit becomes limited by A() at a dierent frequency. The product of the innite gain and the 3 dB frequency is known as the gain-bandwidth product. What is the gain-bandwidth product for each of your circuits from above?

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Make a single Bode plot that contains the results for both your 10 and 100 circuits and the open-loop gain that you measured. Discuss what you observe on this plot in terms of the previous discussion.

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