16.2 OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIERS
An operational amplifier is a high gain direct-coupled amplifier, i.e, the output of one stage is directly connected to the input of the next stage. The advantage with a direct-coupled amplifier, essentially, is that it has a flat frequency response right from zero cycles. This means that operational amplifiers can be used for both dc and ac applications. An operational amplifier has four basic building blocks as shown in Fig. 16.1(a): (i) a dual-input, dual-output balanced differential or difference amplifier as the input stage; (ii) a dual-input, single-ended output, unbalanced differential amplifier as the voltage amplifier; (iii) dc-level shifter or level translator and (iv) the output power stage. Most of the ...
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