Analog Circuit Design

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Micropower circuits for signal conditioning

Jim Williams

Low power operation of electronic apparatus has become increasingly desirable. Medical, remote data acquisition, power monitoring and other applications are good candidates for battery driven, low power operation. Micropower analog circuits for transducer-based signal conditioning present a special class of problems. Although micropower ICs are available, the interconnection of these devices to form a functioning micropower circuit requires care. (See Box Sections A and C, “Some guidelines for micropower design and an example” and “Parasitic effects of test equipment on micropower circuits.”) In particular, trade-offs between signal levels and power dissipation become painful when performance ...