Operational Amplifiers Are One Of The Most Widely Used Electronic Devices Today

An operational amplifier is a DC coupled high gain electronic voltage amplifier with differential input and output. In this configuration, the output potential generated by the operational amplifier (relative to circuit ground) is usually 100000 times greater than the potential difference between its input terminals. Operational amplifiers originated from analog computers, where they are used to perform mathematical operations in many linear, nonlinear, and frequency dependent circuits.

The popularity of operational amplifiers in analog circuits is due to their versatility. By using negative feedback, the characteristics of the operational amplifier circuit, such as gain, input and output impedance, bandwidth, etc., are determined by external components and are almost independent of the temperature coefficient or engineering tolerance of the operational amplifier itself.

Operational amplifiers are one of the most widely used electronic devices today, widely used in consumer, industrial, and scientific devices. At medium production, the cost of many standard IC operational amplifiers is only a few cents. However, the small batch price of some integrated or hybrid operational amplifiers with special performance specifications may exceed $100. Operational amplifiers can be packaged as components or used as components for more complex integrated circuits.

An operational amplifier is a differential amplifier. Other types of differential amplifiers include fully differential amplifiers (similar to operational amplifiers but with two outputs), instrument amplifiers (usually constructed from three operational amplifiers), isolation amplifiers (similar to instrument amplifiers but with universal tolerance mode voltage that can break ordinary operational amplifiers), and negative feedback amplifiers (usually composed of one or more operational amplifiers and a resistance feedback network).