Development trend and application hotspot of the h

The development trend of four types of operational amplifiers and their application hotspots

the rise of emerging applications such as information appliances,, PDA, and Networking provides an active stage for operational amplifiers, and also puts forward new technical requirements for them. This topic will discuss the technical development trends and application hotspots of four types of operational amplifiers from the aspects of technical characteristics, manufacturing process and packaging technology

in recent years, the development of consumer electronics, communications, networking and other application fields has also put forward new technical requirements for op amp products. Lower power consumption, smaller packaging and good matching performance have become very important. Therefore, designers have made innovations in design methods, and the progress of manufacturing technology and packaging technology has also provided a certain guarantee for improving the performance of operational amplifiers. Driven by many factors, the next generation of operational amplifiers is developing towards faster speed, higher integration and lower price

from the perspective of market demand, the global demand for amplifiers has maintained a strong growth. The Chinese market is no exception, especially in the field of consumption and communication. Erik Soule, general manager of Lingte's signal conditioning product line, said, "the communication and networking infrastructure market has begun to recover, and this kind of equipment will grow greatly in China in the next few years. It will change with the growth or slowdown of relevant industries. These applications require high-speed ADC drivers, as well as low-noise, low input bias operational amplifiers and other products."

adi's product line has been made to meet the experimental requirements of creep endurance (or stress relaxation). Curt ventola believes that the driving forces for the growth of the amplifier Market in the future mainly include three aspects: first, the low power consumption requirements of portable applications will promote the growth of amplifiers with low operating power supply voltage/current; Second, high-resolution applications require amplifiers that reduce noise and distortion; Third, as the performance and price pressures continue to rise, the prospects for amplifiers that can integrate other functions are optimistic

Leon Lee, Asia Pacific Standard Linear IC Product Marketing Manager of St, also pointed out that advanced applications in the fields of testing and measurement, communication, medical imaging and so on are the main driving force to improve the performance of amplifiers; DSL and consumer video applications are the largest markets, and this trend will continue in the future. Among them, the growth point of DSL operational amplifier mainly lies in the line driver. Consumer video amplifiers that integrate functions such as filtering, multiplexing and DC recovery are also promising

according to databean, a market research company, the market of high-speed, low-voltage/low-power and high-precision operational amplifiers is expected to grow steadily in the next five years, with compound annual growth rates of 13%, 8% and 11% respectively. The compound annual growth rate of general-purpose operational amplifiers is expected to be 5%. From the perspective of application, different systems have different requirements for operational amplifiers. Choosing the right operational amplifier is very important for system design. For high-speed applications such as communication, high-speed measuring instruments and ultrasonic equipment, AC characteristics are extremely important. But for low-speed high-precision systems, DC characteristics are usually more important. The parameters to measure the AC characteristics of the system include signal bandwidth, distortion rate, noise, etc; The parameters to measure the DC characteristics of the system include input compensation voltage, open-loop gain, input bias current and common mode rejection ratio

this paper will discuss the technical development trend and application hot spots of these four types of operational amplifiers from the aspects of application requirements, technical characteristics and process packaging

communication and video applications make high-speed operational amplifiers the focus

high-speed operational amplifiers generally refer to operational amplifiers with a bandwidth higher than 50MHz. Now, in order to match the requirements of back-end components of the signal chain (such as high-speed ADC or processor), the bandwidth recording of operational amplifiers has exceeded GHz. This is mainly due to the significant improvement of the efficiency of the back-end components in recent years. Therefore, in order to match the back-end components and avoid dragging down the overall efficiency performance of the signal chain, the operational amplifier at the front end of the signal chain began to develop at a high speed, and the high-speed operational amplifier may leap into the mainstream operational amplifier products in the future

according to the prediction of databean, the high-speed operational amplifier will gradually occupy the market share of other operational amplifier products. In terms of shipping amount, by 2009, the proportion of high-speed operational amplifiers in the overall operational amplifier market will reach 30%, while the general-purpose operational amplifiers will fall to less than 20%

in general, high-speed operational amplifiers are mainly used in XDSL modems, set-top boxes and video systems, or as the front-end signal adjustment role of high-speed ADC. This kind of op amp has the most stringent requirements for signal-to-noise ratio and distortion, so semiconductor manufacturers generally use the form of differential output when designing this kind of op amp

compared with the traditional "two in and one out" op amp, the "two in and two out" differential output outputs two inverted signals at the same time, so the system engineer can know the waveform of the output signal before it is not affected by noise or distortion through the comparison of the two signals, so that the design engineer can solve the possible problems on the signal chain in time

for example, the high-speed operational amplifier ad8045 newly launched by Adi company has an easy-to-use voltage feedback structure, normalized gain stability, and pin output optimized for high-performance systems. The speed of the device reaches 1GHz, and has the characteristics of low noise and low distortion. It is suitable for a variety of high-speed applications, including medical equipment, automatic test equipment and data acquisition system

for high-speed video and monitoring applications, INTERSIL announced a three amplifier el5367, which uses a proprietary custom structure to isolate its three amplifiers, breaking the 1GHz rate limit. The total supply current of el5367 is only 25mA, which can work in the single supply voltage range of 5V to 12V, and can drive higher than QXGA (2048 × 1536 pixels)

typical video drive architecture adopts AC coupling or DC coupling scheme. AC coupled systems require large external capacitors, but do not require negative power rails. The system with branch coupling does not need expensive large external capacitance, but requires negative power rail. INTERSIL's video amplifier ISL59830 generates a negative power rail on the chip and allows DC coupling of video signals, which can be powered by a separate 3.3V power supply. Lingte lt6555/6 is a 2:1 multiplexed three channel video amplifier, which is suitable for LCD projectors and high-definition video applications

portable applications have spawned low-voltage/Low-Power Operational Amplifiers

with the emergence of battery powered portable products such as, PMP, etc., operational amplifiers that emphasize low power consumption and low voltage came into being. Generally, the low-voltage operational amplifier means that the working voltage is less than 2.5 volts, while the so-called Low-Power Operational Amplifier usually means that the supply current is less than 1mA. This kind of op amp is mostly used in audio systems, voltage comparison circuits, filters and other applications that do not need too high bandwidth

in addition, in testing, measurement and medical systems, engineers also hope to achieve improved performance at low power levels (for example, higher bandwidth, faster conversion rate and lower distortion), so there are also innovation opportunities for Low-Power Operational Amplifiers in these fields

for portable video applications, ADI company launched ada4850-x series amplifier, which can provide rail to rail (R-R) output characteristics, and the working power supply voltage is lower than 2.7V. This product can significantly reduce the failure current and prolong the battery life of portable video applications

in addition, ADI's 6-channel video amplifier ADA also integrates a video filter, which is a single-chip solution. The product can save 50% of power consumption and has high reliability. It enables users to obtain a low-cost solution with the best high-definition video image quality

max4210/max4211, a low-cost, low-power, high-end power/current monitor from Maxon, provides an analog output voltage proportional to the load power consumption, which is calculated by multiplying the load current by the source voltage. Max4210/max4211 use high-end current detection amplifier to measure the load current. Because it does not affect the grounding channel of the load, it is especially suitable for battery power supply system

applications such as testing and measurement promote the development of high-precision operational amplifiers

high-precision operational amplifiers generally refer to operational amplifiers with offset voltage less than 1mV. Unlike low-voltage/Low-Power Operational Amplifiers, these products have high requirements for signal accuracy. If these operational amplifiers are integrated into the back-end chip to form SOC, the noise of other circuits will seriously interfere with the normal operation of these operational amplifiers. Therefore, from the perspective of current technology, these operational amplifiers will be the most difficult components to be integrated. High precision operational amplifiers can be used in industrial automation, medical equipment, measuring instruments, automotive electronics, and even military and national defense

different applications put forward different technical requirements for amplifiers. Prashanth holenarsipur, an application engineer in the multimedia business department of Meixin, pointed out that users are looking for ideal operational amplifiers. They want to obtain additional features for special applications, as well as minimal packaging and low power supply current. A variety of requirements pose challenges to the manufacturing of precision operational amplifiers

intersil's el8176 and e account for 12.35% of China's total non-ferrous metal imports. L8178 can achieve a maximum input compensation voltage of 100 microvolts, which requires only 75 Ma of current and 700 kHz of gain bandwidth

lt1994 launched by Lingte is a high-performance fully differential operational amplifier powered by 3V and 5V power supplies, which can provide 16 bit accuracy and drive high-resolution analog-to-digital converters. The device still works when the voltage is as low as 2.375v, and has rail to rail output. It can directly drive 2.5V and 3V SAR ADC without negative power supply

in addition, Lingte also released two high voltage (105v) current detection amplifiers. Ltc6101 adopts small sot package, with 1US fast response time and high precision; The lt6100 combines the characteristics of high accuracy and pin configuration, and does not require external gain setting resistors

there is still room for development of general-purpose operational amplifiers in traditional application fields

although with the continuous change of application requirements, the suppliers of operational amplifiers