Analog Wire

  • TI offers a free analog simulator on ti.com called TINA-TI and while there are definitely other tools out there that may be bigger - this one is fast and packs a punch. I found a great intro to the program (attached below) and spent some time with TINA...
  • Last week we looked at achieving both high gain and wide bandwidth while maintaining sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in “high-gain, high-bandwidth…how can I get it all?” In this post, we will look more closely at the implementation...
  • Achieving high gain (1000-V/V or more) and high bandwidth (tens of MHz) simultaneously can be a challenge as we are forced to use multiple stages. Besides the circuit requirements of high gain and high bandwidth, the critical issues to pay close attention...
  • I was checking out the TI E2E Analog forums this week and saw a number of EMI design based inquiries – it seems that a lot of us find ourselves struggling with the influence of EMI/RFI related issues. While we all know that it exists and can be...
  • My New Year’s resolution to get in shape hasn’t been as successful as I’d hoped. Like many others, I started strong but may have fallen off the wagon. During one of my workouts, I started wondering how hard it would be to design a...
  • As a former college instructor who regularly lulled his students to sleep with a traditional lecture format, I’m excited to announce that TI is offering a “Hands-On Analog Basics” workshop at Design West 2013 (April 22-25 in San Jose...
  • Before I suggest a suitable op amp to drive an ADC, I look at the application. This steers me toward one of two categories: low voltage or high voltage. If the system requires a low voltage operation, chances are I’ll look for a low power op...
  • The first operational amplifiers (op amps) used what is commonly called split power supplies, meaning the power for the amplifier was symmetrical around ground with both positive and negative polarities. Since most power supplies used transformers to...
  • Current feedback (CFB) amplifiers mostly belong in the realm of high speed amplifiers . There are lot of good application notes developed over the years that describe the operation and the main issues encountered when applying current feedback amplifiers...
  • In my last post, I introduced the DAC Essentials blog series here on Analog Wire . If you missed it, check it out here. While most IC designers I know would shudder to think of a datasheet this way, the purpose of a datasheet is typically to explain...