This post is co-authored by Richard Barthel and Errol Leon.

In applications such as position sensors, data-acquisition systems and resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), it is important to design…

Electronics such as smartphones, tablets, notebooks and wearable products are becoming more multifunctional, smaller and slimmer. Achieving higher functionality in smaller form factors requires extremely…

It’s simple to design a multiplexer (or mux for short) into a signal chain, right? After all, the device simply funnels multiple signals into a data converter.

In reality, a mux can significantly impact the performance of a signal chain in a variety…

When responding to questions posted on TI E2E™ Community forums, we frequently run simulations using TINA-TI™ software, a SPICE-based simulation program. Since we are always in the process of updating…

Many sensors produce low-level DC outputs that require a high input-impedance amplification stage to increase the signal amplitude. Sensors used in personal and portable electronics require operational…

This post is co-authored by Raphael Puzio.

Photodiode-based light sensing is a common application of operational amplifiers (op amps) used in medical equipment, industrial automation, robotics, point-of-sale machines, drones, smoke detectors and building…

Protecting expensive, critical or hard-to-repair equipment against overcurrent and power-supply fault conditions can be achieved with universally available operational amplifiers (op amps) and a few external components…

In portable electronics designs, typical battery-monitoring systems measure battery voltage and battery current to detect when the battery needs charging or replacement. In this post, I’ll demonstrate battery…

This post was co-authored with John Caldwell.

In the final installment of this five-part blog series, I will discuss pop/click noise in operational amplifiers (op amps) driving headphone loads, and some techniques…

Did you know that there are operational amplifiers (op amps) with a ground pin? If you’re an experienced analog engineer, you probably know that, but those who haven’t worked…

This post is co-authored by Bharath Vasan.

In part three of this five-part blog series, we introduced a simple control-loop model for distortion in an operational amplifier (op amp), repeated here in Figure…

This post is co-authored by Bharath Vasan.

Pop quiz! Take a look at the total harmonic distortion and noise (THD+N) curve in Figure 1. It’s for an OPA1688, a 36V, 10MHz audio operational amplifier (op amp…

This post is co-authored by John Caldwell.

In the first post in our “Amp up your cans” blog series, my colleague John Caldwell and I used a nominal value of headphone impedance to calculate the output…

In my last blog, I described how a customer had been operating their op amp circuit with a power supply voltage level that was too high for the amplifier and the consequences of doing this. Recently, while…

Applications engineers tend to overlook printed circuit board (PCB) layout during circuit design. It is often the case that a circuit’s schematic is correct, but does not work, or perhaps works with reduced performance…

This post is co-authored by Bharath Vasan.

When we set out to create an operational amplifier (op amp) for headphone applications (which became the OPA1622 op amp), one of the first questions we needed to address was…

A few years ago, a customer asked me a rather surprising question: “I realize I am exceeding the maximum supply-voltage rating, but how long will your OPA373 operational amplifier continue to operate if it is powered by a 12V supply?” The …

My previous posts discussed the basics of 4-wire transmitters and showed circuit-level design options for output and power-isolated 4-wire sensor transmitters. In this post, I’ll cover the final isolation configuration for 4-wire sensor transmitters …

President Ronald Reagan frequently said “trust but verify” when discussing U.S. relations with the Soviet Union. Some say it comes from a Russian proverb, “doveryai no proveryai.”

Trust but…

My previous posts discussed the basics of 4-wire sensor transmitters, along with a detailed design of an output-isolated sensor transmitter. Today, I’m discussing power-isolated 4-wire sensor transmitters.

First, let’s review the high-level diagram…

In my last post, I discussed the basic structure of 4-wire sensor transmitters and how they differ from 2-wire and 3-wire sensor transmitters. In this post, I will discuss the construction of a locally powered output…

Monolithic difference amplifiers are integrated circuits that incorporate an operational amplifier (op amp) and four or more precision resistors in the same package. They are incredibly useful building blocks for analog…

Part 4 of this series discussed the issues and requirements involved in the design of a 2-wire sensor transmitter that accepts inputs from an externally powered sensor/source. In this installment, I’ll expand on the concepts presented in that post and…

In part 5 of this blog series, I discussed the construction of an input-isolated 2-wire sensor transmitter. Input-isolated 2-wire transmitters require isolating the sensor power and data signals from the 2-wire loop supply and 2-wire loop return (RTN…

This technical article was updated on July 23, 2020.

Designing high-performance multiplexed data-acquisition (DAQ) systems with high throughputs can be difficult. That’s because the entire system, shown in Figure 1, only has up to the maximum time between…