UTsource update: Best Op-Amp IC product review

Ayan biswas
utsource
Published in
7 min readMay 26, 2020

If you are very interested in analog circuits and developing new things in this wide range of electronics domain you surely have to know about Operational Amplifiers (shortly often called as Op-Amp ). In this article, we will discuss some basics of Op-Amps and their working principle along with different amplification gains based on the working principle in different modes. We will also cover some best Op-Amps in today’s industry offered by UTSource so let’s take a deep dive to this electronics world.

What is Op-Amp?

An operational amplifier or Op-Amp is a very high gain differential amplifier which comes with high input impedance and low output impedance. Various uses of the operational amplifier are to provide voltage amplitude changes (amplitude and polarity), oscillators, filter circuits, and many types of instrumentation circuits. An Op-Amp contains a number of differential amplifier stages to achieve a very high voltage gain compared to the input voltage but this also depends upon certain circuit conditions which makes the Op-Amp more useful than others.

What is the main use of Op-Amp?

In a wide range of operations, we use Op-Amps , some of the uses are listed below.

  1. It is used as a voltage follower
  2. It is also used as selective inversion circuits modelling.
  3. A good current to voltage converter.
  4. A wide range of filters can be achieved via the use of Op-Amps
  5. It is also used as voltage comparators.
  6. We use Op-Amps for dependent source applications (like voltage or current controlled voltage or current source ).

Basic circuit Diagram of two basic modes of operation of Op-Amp

I. non-inverting mode of operation
II. Inverting mode of operation

Now we will move forward to the discussion of some available good market variants of Op-Amp chips which can be used in circuits easily.

1. LM741H

LM741H Chip

UTSource LM741H Price: US $0.76

It is a good variant of bipolar Amplifier, which is manufactured by National Semiconductor. In a wide range of electronics devices, it can be used as an Amplifier as it has a very good gain and wide bandwidth range.

It has mounting operation through-hole and the operating temperature is classified as the military.

Some key features of LM741H

I. Its Unity Gain Bandwidth Product is 0.25 MHz

II. The voltage gain of this Op-Amp is 106.02 db .

III. It has also a good power supply rejection ratio of 77 db .

IV. The CMMR (Common Mode Rejection Ratio) of this Op-Amp is 70 db which is

really a very good one.

2. LM324N

LM324N Chip

UTSource LM32RN Price: US $0.09

It is another variety of a very low-cost amplifier made by Texas Instruments which uses Bipolar technology and comes with a DIP Packaging type.

There is a wide range of application of this Op-Amp like, it is widely used in transducer amplifiers. DC gain blocks and conventional amplifiers circuits mainly consist of LM324N and it can be used in comparator, rectifier and oscillator circuits also.

Some key features of LM324N

I. Its Unity Gain Bandwidth Product is 1.2 MHz

II. The voltage gain of this Op-Amp is 100 dB .

III. The dual supply voltage shows a medium-range (±1.5(V) to ±16.0(V) )

IV. It has a narrow slew rate of 0.5(V/us) which makes it different from other similar Op-Amps.

3. LM1458

LM1458 Chip

UTSource LM1458 Price: US $0.33

It is another bipolar Op-Amp from National Semiconductor which is widely used as dual general-purpose operational amplifiers. It also comes with varieties like LM1458M and LM1458C.

It provides short circuit protection without no extra requirement of external components for frequency compensation.LM1458 is ideal for use as voltage followers because of high common-mode voltage range and absence of “latch-up”.

Some key features of LM1458

I. Its Unity Gain Bandwidth Product is 1 MHz which is quite common to previous

II. The CMMR (Common Mode Rejection Ratio) of this Op-Amp is 70 db which is

really a very good one.

III. The dual supply voltage shows a quite good range (±3.0(V) to ±18.0(V) )

IV. It has a narrow slew rate of 0.5(V/us) which makes it different from other similar Op-Amps.

4. NE5532

NE5532 Chip

UTSource NE5532 Price: US $0.20

The NE5532 is a Low Noise Audio amplifier IC from Texas Instruments. The IC features a very low noise with unity gain internal compensation. The gain of the IC is up to 5000 and hence is commonly used in audio pre-amplifier circuits. Since the IC is highly immune to noise it is commonly preferred in sensitive audio signal conditioning designs.

The Op-Amp also has a low range operating voltage from ±3V to ±20V and hence can be used in a wide variety of voltage ranges. The Op-Amp can also have wide bandwidth and slew rate and hence can be used in frequency selection, enabling you to control bass or treble of audio signals and play it in different modes like Rock, Jazz etc

Some key features of NE5532

  1. It is a dual low noise Op-Amp which comes with an 8-pin package and widely used in audio circuits.
  2. It has noise immunity and high output drive capability.
  3. The Op-Amp is internally compensated for high unity gain with maximum output swing bandwidth.
  4. It has also low distortion and high slew rate.

5. LM358

LM358N Chip

UTSource LM358N Price: US $0.21

It is a dual Op-Amp IC integrated with two op-amps powered by a common power supply. It can be considered as one half of LM324 Quad op-amp which contains four op-amps with common power supply. The differential input voltage range can be equal to that of the power supply voltage. The default input offset voltage is very low which is of magnitude 2mV.

The typical supply current is 500uA independent of the supply voltage range and a maximum current of 700uA which gives it great usefulness compared to other amplifiers. The operating temperature ranges from 0˚C to 70˚C at ambient whereas the maximum junction temperature can be up to 150˚C which is also a good feature of this particular Op-Amp.

Some key features of LM358

  1. Integrated with two Op-Amps in a single package
  2. Wide power supply Range i.e. Singe supply — 3V to 32V and Dual supply — ±1.5V to ±16V .
  3. It has low Supply current — 700uA
  4. It has also single supply for two op-amps enables reliable operation
  5. It provides short circuit protected outputs
  6. Operating ambient temperature — 0˚C to 70˚C which is quite good
  7. Soldering pin temperature — 260 ˚C (for 10 seconds — prescribed)
  8. Available packages: TO-99, CDIP, DSBGA, SOIC, PDIP, DSBGA for this Op-Amp.

6. UA741CP

UA741CP Chip

UTSource UA741 Price: US $0.09

The UA741 IC is a monolithic Op-Amp with high-performance, and it is designed on an only Si chip. This IC is used in a wide range of analog applications.

The operating voltage of broad range as well as high-gain provides better performances over all other Amplifiers within the applications like integrators, general feedback, and summing amplifier applications.

Some key features of UA741

I. The input voltage range is wide enough to design proper requirements .

II.There is no latch-up available in this Op-Amp

III. Gain is high compared to others

III. Short circuit safety is provided by this.

IV. Frequency recompense is not required for this Op-Amp

V. The voltage supply is ±18V

VI. Differential input voltage is ±15V

VII. Common mode rejection ratio is 90dB

VIII. Amplification of differential voltage is 200V/mv

X. This pin is accessible in different packages like 8-Pin PDIP, VSSOP, & SOIC packages

Summary

So we have discussed a good number of examples of various Op-Amps for the various circuit operations ranging from Operational short circuit safety to high current gains and also their CMRR…. and much more is mentioned which gives a greater idea about their operating condition overview so take a deep breathe and explore the great world of electronics for more details please visit https://www.utsource.net .

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Ayan biswas
utsource

GSoC’21 participant @CircuitVerse || ETCE Undergrad class of 2023 @Jadavpur University