Operational Amplifier Circuits

The Effect of Heavy Loads on the Accuracy and Linearity of

National Semiconductor
The Effect of Heavy Loads Application Note 1485
on the Accuracy and Bob Pease
May 7, 2008
Linearity of Operational
Amplifier Circuits
(or, "What's All this Output
Impedance Stuff,
Anyhow?")

Introduction
It is well known that the ideal operational amplifier (op amp)
should have very high gain, very high bandwidth, very high
input impedance, and very low output impedance. 1 It is pos-
sible to get conventional amplifiers with very high gain (120
dB or higher), and very high bandwidth (100 MHz, 1000 MHz,
or more). However, most op amps do not have a very low
open-loop output impedance (Zout). Only a few are as low as
50 ohms, and can drive a 50-ohm load without any significant
degradation of gain (barely 2:1). See Figure 1.

20194946

FIGURE 2. (a) Conventional high-gain Op-Amp with

emitter-follower output stage (simplified).
(b) Op-amp with collector-loaded "rail-to-rail" output
stage (simplified).
(c) CMOS Op-amp with drain-loaded "rail-to-rail" output
stage (simplified)

It is also known that the closed-loop output impedance of a

typical operational amplifier can be MUCH lower than the
20194945
open-loop output impedance. If an op amp has, for example,
an open-loop gain of 10,000, and its open-loop output
FIGURE 1. Model of Operational Amplifier (Op-Amp) with impedance is 50 ohms, the output impedance after the loop
finite output impedance Ro. If Ro is significant compared is closed can be as low as 50 milliohms or lower, depending
to RL, the effective Av (Vout/ VE) will be degraded vs. on the application (assuming the amplifier is used at a gain of
Avol. 5 or lower). So for many applications, at least at low frequen-
cies, it is a fair statement that the closed-loop output
Many op amps designed over the last 50 years have Class B impedance can be very low.
or class A-B emitter-follower output stages, which help pro- However, a new class of amplifiers has been introduced over
vide low output impedance and high efficiency. Many of these the last 30 years, which do not have emitter-follower outputs.
use mature bipolar transistor technology, and can operate on Why not? Because many of the new amplifiers are designed
± 15 volts. See Figure 2a. to operate on low voltages such as ± 5 volts, or ± 2.5 volt, or
± 0.9 volts or sometimes even lower. For maximum signal-to-
noise ratio, the output must swing from (nearly) the + rail to
(nearly) the - rail. 2
Obviously any emitter-followers would reduce the output
swing by about 0.7 volts in either direction (and even worse
at cold temperatures), so amplifier designs that use followers
have become obsolete for such low-voltage applications. See
Figure 2b.
AN-1485

© 2008 National Semiconductor Corporation 201949 www.national.com

AN-1485 The first "rail-to-rail" output stage was introduced in Bob sured, for perhaps 16 milliseconds. The output is then re-
Widlar's LM10. This was designed and released in 1976, and quired to go to its negative rated output, the input settles, and
is still in production. It can operate from ± 20 volts to ± 0.6 then is measured again. The gain depends on the reciprocal
volts (or from 40 volts down to 1.2-volts of total power supply) of the small difference between those input tests. This is easy
and its output can swing within a few dozens millivolts of the to do quickly, even for high gains. It takes less than 1/10 sec-
power supply rails. It does not have any output emitter fol- ond, not "several" seconds, to test for amplifiers even with a
lowers. The LM10's output consists of one big NPN output gain of 1 million or 10 million or more. See Figure 3.
stage to pull the output down, and sink 15 to 20 mA of current,
and comparable PNP transistors to source as much as 15 to
20 mA. It has some very complicated bias circuits to make
sure these two transistors take turns at driving the load, as
required. Figure 2b.
More recently, over the last 15 years, there have been dozens
of different designs, mostly using CMOS technology, and all
have "Drain-loaded" outputs, with N-channel and P-channel
FETs which can source and sink many milliamperes, Figure
2c. These all have high output impedances. One way to look
at it is, that the gain gets lower when you load the output with
a heavy load. Another way to look at it is, that the gain RISES
when the load gets lighter. See Figure 3.
In concept, a Drain-loaded output stage could use negative
feedback to an internal stage, so that the gain would not
change much as the load gets heavy or light. Practically, it
would take a lot of high-value resistors to accomplish this, and 20194949
such resistors would be very expensive in monolithic IC tech-
nology. In practice, the disadvantage that the gain changes FIGURE 4. Gain test where Av = 1000 x ▴Vout / 1000 x▴
as the load is changed, is not serious. This is largely because VE, using separate preamplifier and X-Y oscilloscope.
the gain is very high when the load is heavy, and it just gets
higher when the load is lightened. Another argument is that an amplifier with a gain of 2 million
or 20 million, would not be useful except for signals slower
than 0.1 Hz. This also turns out to be a misconception. If a
modern op-amp is connected for a gain of + 1000.00, and a
1.0 mV dc signal is applied to the input, the output will settle
in a few milliseconds, per Figure 5. However, an amplifer with
a mere gain of 200,000 would settle its output to 995 millivolts.
A gain of 2 million would settle to 999.5 millivolts, and an am-
plifier with a gain of 20 million will settle to 999.95 millivolts -
in milliseconds! MUCH better accuracy.

20194947

FIGURE 3. Bode plot for high-gain amplifiers with various

DC gains, operating at a gain of 1000. 20194960

I once heard some engineers argue that there is no advantage FIGURE 5. High-gain amplifier operating at a gain of 1000.
when an op amp's gain gets very high, and in concept there Its precision depends on high Avol (and low Vos).
may be disadvantages. One argument is that there is no need
for any op-amp to have a gain greater than 200,000, because Furthermore, if you put in 1.0000 millivolt p-p sine waves, at
if the gain gets higher, it would have to be tested at very low 5 or 10 Hz or 20 Hz, the output amplitudes of those three
frequencies, lower than 0.1 Hz. Such testing would take many amplifiers would be, respectively, 995 mv p-p, 999.5 mv p-p,
seconds, and this testing would be quite expensive, and no- and 999.95 mV, p-p. Even at 10 or 20 Hz, a precision amplifier
body would want to pay for that. can provide enhanced accuracy over low-gain amplifiers. The
However, this turns out to be untrue, as modern amplifier claim that a high open-loop gain at 0.1 or 0.01 Hz is useless,
testing can resolve a "dc gain" as high as 2 million or 20 mil- unless your signal is at 0.01 Hz, is just incorrect.
lion, in just a few milliseconds. No 20-second test is required. Some other engineers say that an amplifier with high output
An operational amplifier with 1 MHz of Gain-Bandwidth Prod- impedance and good gain (such as 1 million at 1 Hz) can have
uct, operating at a closed-loop gain of 1000, has a closed-loop its dc gain rise to 10 million or more, if the rated load is taken
bandwidth of 1 kHz. Thus its time constant is 160 μseconds, off. The DC gain would rise so high, they claim, that when it
and it can settle in less than 20 tau, or 4 milliseconds, per starts to roll off, it would roll off too fast, with excessive phase
Figure 3. shift, and be unstable. Refer to Figure 6. In actuality, all op-
In its gain test, the output is required to go to its positive rated amps these days have smooth 6-dB per octave rolloff, all the
output, and the input error settles quickly and is then mea- way back to very low frequencies. Op amps that rolled off at

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 AN-1485
10 or 12 dB per octave, when the rated load is taken off, have The -input voltage (the gain error) is fed to a preamp with a
not been seen for over 30 years. gain of +1000. This was sometimes fed directly to the scope's
vertical input (DC coupled) at sensitivities varying from 2000
mV to 5 mV per division, yielding a resolution of 2 mV down
to 5 μV per division. By using the cross-plot mode, it was pos-
sible to resolve 1 or 2 μV p-p of gain error in the presence of
a few microvolts of noise. For amplifiers with large offset volt-
age, I fed the signal in to the scope's DC input through 11
μF, so that 0.2 Hz signals could be resolved without appre-
ciable phase shift.
The test circuit I actually used was Figure 7, with the amplifier
acting as a unity gain inverter for the signals, and acting as a
preamp of gain = 1000 for its own error signals. This makes
the test set-up easier. The output voltage is plotted in each
Test as a straight line at 45° slope, versus the same signal on
the horizontal axis. The output voltage is positive and the out-
put is sourcing current on the right side of each Figure, and
the output voltage is negative, and sinking current, on the left.
20194948

FIGURE 6. High-gain amplifiers with extremely high gain.

So an operational amplifier with very high gain actually does

have some good advantages, and not really any disadvan-
tages.
When an op-amp is asked to drive a heavy output current, it
can have large errors if it does not have plenty of gm or
transconductance. This is true whether it has output followers
and low output impedance, OR if it has high output
impedance. So the gm is very important, and a good amplifier
design must have an appropriate amount of gm - plenty of
mhos (milliamperes per millivolt). Many precision amplifiers
have many mhos of gm . As we shall see, precision amplifiers 20194950
such as the LM627, LMC6022 , and LMP2012 have a gm of
at least 10,000 mhos. Other popular amplifiers have 50 to 500 FIGURE 7. Gain test where the DUT acts as its own
mhos. Special-purpose amplifiers may have as little as 2 to preamp. Gain = 1001 x ( Vvert)/( Vhoriz.)
20 mhos, which may be adequate for particular needs.
I generally used a triangle wave for almost all tests. This gave
Instrumentation better resolution of p-p errors for the gain test, and it allowed
me to run at moderate frequencies (1 to 10 to 80 Hz) and not
Many modern op amps have such high gain that a preamp
get the DC gain error signal confounded by the ac gain error.
with a gain such as 1000 is needed, to let you see the gain
Refer to Figure 31, the plot of Test A11. Even though the gain
error. Even then, a time-based scope does not let you resolve
at 8 Hz on this amplifier was just 2,500,000, I was easily able
the linear and nonlinear components of the gain error. So I
to resolve the 2.5 μV of gain error, which is completely inde-
used a Tektronix 2465 (analog) oscilloscope in X-Y(cross-
pendent from the AC gain error. The AC gain error (due to
plot) mode. One good way to test the amplifier is to connect
finite gain-bandwith product) causes the upper and lower
the Device Under Test (DUT) as a unity-gain inverter as
traces to separate by 8 μV, yet we can still see the "DC" gain
shown in Figure 4 and feed the output of the DUT to the scope
error of 2.5 μV (gain of 8 million). The gain error is the SLOPE
horizontal display, through a 10X (10 megohm) probe. The
of either the upper or the lower trace, as the output ramps
output was also fed to one of the vertical channels, so we see
back and forth. This gives much better resolution than a sine
the cross-plot of Vout versus itself, as a straight line, with a
wave, and is easier to instrument at a higher sweep rate.
slope of + 45 degrees. Typically, the first amplifiers I tested
were high-voltage bipolar amplifiers swinging ± 10 volts, with For example... measuring the dc gain of the LMP2012 with
the scope set at 5 volts per division. The signal source was a Test F01A would require operating at sine frequencies below
Wavetek 193, with adjustable amplitude and variable DC off- 0.1 Hz; but by using a 2 Hz triangle wave, we could see that
set. I used the variable offset to adjust the output to swing the DC slope would be less than 1 μV at 0.01Hz, by "sub-
exactly ± 10 volts, for the high-voltage amplifiers. The output tracting" the opening between the upper and lower traces.
swing was set at ± 4 volt peaks for CMOS amplifiers running
on ± 5 volts, and ± 2.0 volts for amplifiers running on ± 2.5
volts, in general.

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AN-1485
Bipolar Amplifiers -- And Funny
Errors
I started by measuring the old LM709, one of the first mono-
lithic op-amps, almost 40 years old. This was a good test. The
gain error at 1 megohm load was 480 microvolts, so the Av
was 42,000 at 10 Hz. This was safely better than the 25,000
published spec of the device. I then applied the 1 kilohm load.
Most of these op amps were rated to drive a 2 kilohm load,
but I put on a 1k load, to see what was going to happen. It
made errors about twice as big as they would have been with
a 2k load, which was slightly unfair, but helped the resolution
20194907 of the errors, which were often pretty small. (On rare occa-
Test D07B, LMC6022 F = 2 Hz. sions, I could tell that a 1k load was unfair, so I would re-test
Vs = ± 5 Vdc; Vout = ± 4 volts peak, Iout = ± 4 mA peak. at a 2k load, to see what was really going on at rated load.)
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 4μV p-p at 20μV/div. In the case of the LM709, (Figure 9) a 1k load actually caused
Middle Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 7μV p-p at 20μV/div. (TRIANGLE) the overall gain slope to degrade by about 60 μV. This corre-
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 7μV p-p at 20μV/div. (SINE) sponds to an output impedance of about 120 ohms, not too
bad. However, there was definitely some non-linear error -
FIGURE 8. about 80 μV p-p. Where did that came from? This nonlinear
error seems to be bigger than the linear error caused by Zout.
Also, when we start seeing nonlinearity, we can easily resolve
what is nonlinear, because the error correlates with the loca-
tion on the X-Y plot. In Figure 8, we see the curves taken from
Test D07B. This is an example of an amplifier, the LMC6022,
with distortion down near 1/2 ppm (+/- 2 μV). When we use
triangle waves it is easy to see this distortion, per the middle
trace. If we relied on sine waves, it would be hard to resolve
this amount of distortion, per the lowest curve.

20194952

FIGURE 10. AN-A shows that the heat from an amplifier's

output transistors can flow past its input transistors.

This has been thoroughly analyzed in a 1975 technical article,

known as NSC Application Note A (AN-A) by James Solomon.
This App Note analyzes the circuit and layout of a monolithic
20194921 amplifier, where an output stage drives a heavy load. One or
Test A01, LM709, Curve of Gain Error, F = 10 Hz. the other of the output transistors gets warm to the extent of
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak. 25 or 50 milliwatts, and sends thermal gradients across the
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 480μV p-p at 200μV/div. IC chip. See Figure 12. For a complete overview, refer to AN-
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 540μV p-p at 200μV/div. A at http://www.national.com/an/AN/AN-A.pdf . But in their
simplest form, the drawings from AN-A are included here.
FIGURE 9. Figure 11 and Figure 13 show that a mere 49 milliwatts can
cause a 40 milli-degree C temperature gradient, between the
input transistors of the op-amp, located 10 milli-inches apart.
If the input transistors were laid out transverse to the heat
gradient, they would be heated to the same extent, and the
thermal error referred to input could have been quite small.
The LM709's input transistors are Q1 and Q2, per Figure 14.
They were located along the gradient, 10 milli-inches apart,
(Figure 15) and did a very good job of detecting the thermal
gradient. Every competitor who copied Widlar's LM709 was
afraid to change anything, for fear of making something
worse! Even after the LM709 became obsolescent, other am-
plifiers' layouts still did not do a very good job of rejecting the
thermal gradients, for many years.

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 AN-1485
20194951

FIGURE 11. AN-A shows the shape of the input error caused by output heat flow, when cross-plotted vs. Vout on an X-Y
scope.

20194954

FIGURE 12. AN-A shows the shape of the input error caused by output heat flow, when cross-plotted vs. Vout on an X-Y
scope.

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AN-1485

20194953

FIGURE 13. AN-A shows that the shape of the error voltage (gain error) can be a summation of electrical and thermal
errors. Compare to Figure 9.

20194957

FIGURE 14. Schematic Diagram of the LM709.

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 AN-1485
20194958

FIGURE 15. Layout of LM709 Die. The spacing from Q1 to Q13 or Q14 is 56 milli-inches, and to Q2 is 10 mils.

Eventually, newer amplifiers took advantage of symmetry and The next example of a good amplifier with imperfect thermal
common-centroid layouts (See at "What's All This Common- layout is the familiar LM301A, per Figure 16. Its no-load gain
Centroid Stuff, Anyhow?") http://www.elecdesign.com/Arti- was measured at 280,000. But at full load, its non-linear error
cles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=6121 3 to reject thermal gradi- is also about 80 μV p-p. This, too, gives acceptable over-all
ents. Most of the CMOS amplifiers we will study, below, do performance. Figure 17 shows an LM301A's thermal errors
not have any appreciable thermal errors, because the CMOS at various frequencies. The errors at 2 Hz are as expected.
amplifiers were carefully laid out with good layouts to reject When the frequency increases to 20 Hz, the thermal errors
thermal gradients. These were accomplished mostly with the are decreasing rapidly. At 200 Hz, they have shrunk to a low
use of symmetry, and not with the use of computers. That is level, so the distortion is much less. This is a characteristic of
because computers are not generally suitable for analyzing thermal errors, that they decrease rapidly at high frequencies.
the heat flow among the millions of points inside a silicon die,
not to mention the thousands of points in time, when a thermal
transient occurs. Also, if an amplifier is modelled in SPICE,
the SPICE models of most transistors do not allow the tran-
sistors to be at different temperatures. New and improved
transistor models do now (2001 to 2006) have the ability to
analyze temperature differences, but these models are bulky
and slow and not highly successful. Symmetry generally
works much better.
Other than that, the LM709's gain error was quite adequate
for most applications. And if the 709 was run with a load of
not such a heavy resistance as 1k or 2k, but 4 k ohms total,
its linearity would be as low as 2 ppm. So even the oldest
amplifier designs are not too bad.

7 www.national.com
AN-1485

20194961 20194962
Test A02, LM301A, Curve of Gain Error, F = 5 Hz Test A02B, LM301A, Curve of Gain Error.
Vs = +/- 15 Vdc; Vout = +/- 10 volts peak, I out = +/-10 mA peak. Vs = +/- 15 Vdc; Vout = +/- 10 volts peak, I out = +/-10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, +75 μV p-p at 100 μV/div. Upper Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 60μVp-p at 100μV/div., F = 2 Hz
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 70 μV p-p at 100 μV/div.
Middle Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 60μVp-p at 100μV/div., F = 20 Hz
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 25μVp-p at 100μV/div., F = 200 Hz.
FIGURE 16.
FIGURE 17.

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 AN-1485
Group A: High-Voltage Amplifiers
Now we will go through a big list of operational amplifiers that
run on ± 15 volts, and are designed with mostly bipolar tran-
sistors. Many of these older amplifiers have imperfect thermal
errors, but there are some exceptions.
Test A01 is the LM709, as we have already discussed, in-
cluded here just for comparison with the other amplifiers in
this group.

20194923
Test A02B, LM301, F = 4 Hz
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA Peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 6μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 90μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 20.

Test A03 is an LM741. It, too has significant thermal errors.

Note that the left-side hump is larger than the right-hand
20194921 hump, indicating that the output transistor that sinks current
Test A01, LM709, Curve of Gain Error, F = 10 Hz. has more thermal effect than the one that sources.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 480μV p-p at 200μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 540μV p-p at 200μV/div.

FIGURE 18.

Test A02 is the LM301, included again, for comparison.

20194924
Test A03, LM741, F = 2 Hz
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA Peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, +9μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 120μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 21.

20194961
Test A02, LM101A, F = 10 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, +28μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 30μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 19.

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AN-1485 Test A05 is the old LM308. Its thermal errors hump up on one
side, and down on the other side, indicating that the thermal
errors couple into the input stage differently for outputs sourc-
ing vs. sinking currents. This, too, is down near 1 or 2 ppm of
error. However, the LM308 was only rated for a 2 mA load,
and this unit was run at just 5 mA, as it could not drive a 1k
resistive load.

20194925
Test A03B, LM741, F = 1 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 20μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 120μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 22. 20194927

Test A05, LM308, F = 100 Hz.
Test A04 is the old LM725, not based on the Fairchild μA725. VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±5 mA peak. (RL = 2 k)
This amplifier had much lower thermal errors than the ampli- Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 40μV p-p at 50μV/div.
fiers we have seen so far, reflecting an improved layout. This Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 80μV p-p at 50μV/div. (F = 2 Hz)
was a 3-stage amplifier with much higher dc gain, about 2
million at no load, and 1.8 million even at full load. However, FIGURE 24.
this design had a large die, was expensive, was hard to pro-
vide with damping components, and was never popular. But Test A05B is an older LM308. We don't know how old -- per-
it did have improved linearity and low thermal errors. haps 25 or 30 years -- but this shows that the chip layout was
NOTE that the frequency response caused the p-p dynamic quite different, with a distinctly different thermal signature,
error to be about 5μV p-p larger at the right-hand side, than compared to Test A05. The total thermal error is not much
at the left. This is because the LM725 was damped largely by better than A05, but it sure is different! Robert Widlar made
diode capacitances, rather than by discrete damping capaci- many experiments of different layouts. Most amplifier design-
tors. The capacitance was larger when the output voltage was ers made one layout, but Widlar knew that it was important to
positive. It is also noticeable to see the little blip as the output try different layouts, as layout is such an important factor in
has a bit of cross-over distortion at 0 volts. Still, we are only amplifier performance.
seeing these tiny errors (with a resolution of about 2μV) be-
cause this amplifier's gain and noise are better than most of
the previous amplifiers. At moderate loads such as 4 k ohms,
it was capable of about 0.1 ppm linearity.

20194928
Test A05B, LM308, OLD, F = 4 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 160μV p-p at 100μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 260μV p-p at 100μV/div.
20194926
Test A04, LM725*, F = 75 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±9 volts peak, Iout = ±9 mA peak.
FIGURE 25.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 10μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 11μV p-p at 20μV/div.

FIGURE 23.

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 AN-1485
Test A06 is the old LM318. This is not a perfect design, and Test A08 is the LF411, with BiFET (TM) input FETs. It used
not a very good thermal layout, but it was very fast, and ran a very complicated layout, that did not work especially well,
rather rich, and hot, and its mediocre thermal errors are ac- in terms of gain or thermals. No better than average.
ceptable compared to general-purpose amplifiers.

20194931

20194929 Test A08, LF411, F = 6 Hz.

Test A06, LM318, F = 10 Hz. VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 24μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 40μV p-p at 50μV/div. Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, + 140μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, + 125μV p-p at 50μV/div.
FIGURE 28.
FIGURE 26.
Test A09 was the older LF356 BiFET amplifier. It had a
Test A07 is an NSC OP-07. Its thermal errors are not appre- unique and proprietary output stage, that worked just so-so.
ciably better than normal. It did provide adequate output impedance at 4 MHz, so it was
a little faster than most of the general-purpose amplifiers. But
its nonlinearity was only average.

20194930
Test A07, OP-07*, F = 1.2 Hz.
20194932
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±7.5 volts peak, Iout = ±7.50 mA peak. Test A09, LF356, F = 6Hz.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 18μV p-p at 20μV/div. VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 26μV p-p at 20μV/div. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 55μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, + 130μV p-p at 50μV/div.
FIGURE 27.
FIGURE 29.

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AN-1485 Test A10 is the LM607. At one time it was the ~ best op amp Test A12 is the LM10. As mentioned earlier, this is the first
in the world, but it was discontinued as no customers ever amplifier with a "rail-to-rail" output. This amplifier met many
found out about it. Its non-linearity is down at the 0.2 ppm dc characteristics with miraculous accuracy, but the ac lin-
level. The distortion does not look so good, only because the earity was NOT quite as good as you would expect from
gain is turned up twice as high as ∼ any previous amplifier. I Widlar. Later, Widlar's LM12 showed that he could do excel-
used to think the LM607 had a perfect design and layout, but lent accuracy for dynamic errors and linearity, but the LM10
it does seem to show a couple microvolts of thermal error, was primarily a DC amplifier. Its errors look "pretty bad", but
mostly on the positive side, when sourcing current. This could actually its non-linearity was no worse than general-purpose
easily lead to a nonlinearity of 0.15 ppm. amplifiers -- barely 1 or 2 ppm. Its cross-over distortion was
NOT very good, even at 1 Hz, and at higher frequencies, it is
not good at all.The LM10 was NOT a good, linear audio am-
plifier.

20194933
Test A10, LM607*, F = 3 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 1μV p-p at 10μV/div. 20194935
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, + 5μV p-p at 10μV/div. Test A12, LM10, F = 1 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
FIGURE 30. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 4μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 170μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Test A11, the LM627, was a similar design to the LM607, but
the layout must have gotten lucky, and the thermal errors are FIGURE 32.
down below 1 microvolt, even at the heavy load. I must admit,
I am not sure why the gain tends to go from (+ 10 million) at Test A13 shows an LM10 running slightly faster, at 10 Hz. If
no load, to (+ 4 million) at full load. Adding a heavy load does you look at the lower trace, done with a sine wave, it looks
not usually cause the gain to go more (positive). This amplifier very distorted and confusing , and it is hard to see what is
also was not well promoted, was not well known, and was going on. The upper trace shows the error using a triangle
discontinued. wave.This looks just like a speeded up version of the curve at
Test A12. This is one of the major reasons we prefer using
triangle waves, rather than sines -- so we can see and un-
derstand what is going on.

20194970
Test A11, LM627*, F = 8 Hz. 20194936
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak. Test A13, LM10, F = 10 Hz.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 2μV p-p at 10μV/div. VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, +5μV p-p at 10μV/div. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 230μV p-p at 100μV/div., TRIANGLE
wave.
FIGURE 31. Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 290μV p-p at 100μV/div., SINE wave.

FIGURE 33.

www.national.com 12
 AN-1485
Test A14 shows an LM307, a version of the LM301 with a 30
pF compensation capacitor built in. This re-layout caused
somewhat different thermal errors. The distortion is about
typical for general-purpose amplifiers.
This completes the study of single high-voltage amplifiers.

20194937
Test A14, LM307J, F = 2 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 55μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 60μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 34.

13 www.national.com
AN-1485 Test B02 is an LF412, a dual version of the LF411. Despite
Section B, High-Voltage (±15V) strenuous efforts to make a good layout, its thermal errors are
DUAL Amplifiers only a little better than average (about 1/4 ppm).
Test B01, the LM358, is the dual version of the LM324. No
study of amplifiers would be complete without a mention of
the pioneering LM324/LM358. This is the first amplifier whose
honest gain is so non-linear. That is because the output stage
has a Darlington to source the output current, but only one
vertical PNP to drive the sinking current. So it really is deficient
in gain, for negative currents. The DC distortion is STILL at
the 1.5 ppm level. But the thermal errors are negligible.

20194939
Test B02, LF412, F = 4 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 5μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 15μV p-p at 20μV/div.

FIGURE 36.

Test B03 is the LF442, a low-power version of the LF412. It

20194938
Test B01, LM358, F = 1.5 Hz.
was not rated to drive more than 2 mA, and driving 5 mA did
cause poor gain, hundreds of microvolts of gain error, and not
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
very linear. When driving light loads, less than 1 mA, the
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 10μV p-p at 20μV/div.
LF442 was a good general-purpose amplifier.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 65μV p-p at 20μV/div.

FIGURE 35.

LM324s really are used for audio amplifiers and preamps. But
who would use an amplifier with poor linearity like that for an
audio amplifier? It's easy: the output of the amplifier gets a
pre-load or pull-down resistor, such as 5 k from the output to
the - supply, so the output voltage can swing up and down a
couple volts, but the output current is only sourcing. This pro-
vides very adequate linearity for small signals. The LM324 or
LM358 can only swing a couple volts at 10 kHz, but that is
adequate for preamps.

20194940
Test B03, LF442, F = 2 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 6μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 380μV p-p at 200μV/div.

FIGURE 37.

www.national.com 14
 AN-1485
Test B04 is the LM833, an amplifier optimized for audio ap- Test B06 is an LM6182, and its gain errors are quite large -
plications. It has reasonably good linearity, under rated con- the voltage gain is just 2,500, and the gain error degrades 1
ditions but is not able to drive more than the over-load of −8 millivolt with the 1k load. Its gm is only 20 mhos. Who would
mA without some distortion. be interested in an amplifier with such mediocre gain? It's not
even as good gain as an old LM709!
The answer is, the LM6182 is quite fast. Its distortion at DC
is not great, but the distortion holds low even up to 10 MHz
(-50 dBc). So while we would not say it is a good general-
purpose amplifier, it actually is a fairly popular amplifier for
high-speed applications. This is one of the first current-mode
amplifiers we have seen.

20194963
Test B04, LM833, F = 10 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±8 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 6μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 380μV p-p at 200μV/div. (Rl = 2k)

20194942
FIGURE 38.
Test B06, LM6182, F = 500 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Test B05 is another general-purpose amplifier, the LM1458,
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 7.8 mV p-p at 2 mV/div.
basically, a dual LM741. Its errors are only a little worse than
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 8.8 mV p-p at 2 mV/div.
typical.
Note that the humps are upside down, compared to most of FIGURE 40.
the other amplifiers. This just means the heat-sensing inputs
are arranged to detect the thermal gradients in the reverse Test B07 is the LM6142, a rail-to-rail amplifier. We don't ex-
sense. pect its gain to not change with load - and its gain DOES
change with load. But its voltage gain falls from just 3 million
to 1/4 million. Its nonlinearity is still about average, with a 1k
load. Note that its cross-over distortion is MUCH improved
over the LM10 (Test A12). This amplifier, running on less than
0.7 mA per channel, has a 17 MHz gain-bandwidth product,
much improved over the slow LM10.

20194941
Test B05, LM1458, F = 1.1 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 3μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 70μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 39.
20194943
Test B07, LM6142, F = 20 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±5 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, + 7μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 80μV p-p at 50μV/div. (RL = 2k)

FIGURE 41.

15 www.national.com
AN-1485 Test B08 is the LM6152, a faster 75 MHz amplifier, which also Test B09, LM8262 F = 200Hz.
is a "rail-to-rail" Test. Its nonlinearity at 1k load (middle trace) VS = ±11 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
is mediocre, but at its rated 2k load (lower trace) its linearity Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1.3μV p-p at 1mV/div.
is well below 1 ppm. Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 4.8mV p-p at 1mV/div.

FIGURE 43.

In Test B10, we have "saved the best for last". This precision
amplifier, the LME49720, (also known as an LM4562) not only
tests good, but it sounds good. The distortion is not only down
somewhere below 0.15 ppm at 25 Hz, but it keeps improving
at frequencies up to 1 kHz. It was designed as a precision
audio amplifier, but is well suited for many other precision op-
amp functions, with the best, lowest distortion in the industry.
As you can plainly see, the thermals found in most other bipo-
lar transistor op-amps have been banished by excellent lay-
out. Distortion as low as -159 dB has been observed as an
inverter, even driving a 2 kilohm load. For a study of how to
test an op-amp with such low distortion at 1 kHz, refer to
20194944 AN-1671.
Test B08, LM6152, F = 100 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±5 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, –7μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Middle Trace: Gain Error, ±10 mA Load, 120μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, ±5 mA Load, 76μV p-p at 50μV/div.

FIGURE 42.

Test B09 is the LM8262, another fast amplifier. Its gain is high
at no-load, but the gain falls to 2700 at the 1k load. The
crossover distortion is not very good, either. But it is fast. Also,
it is tolerant of capacitive loads.

20194965
Test B10, LM4562 (also known as LME49720) F = 25 Hz.
VS = ±15 Vdc; Vout = ±10 volts peak, Iout = ±10 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, +1.5μV p-p at 10μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 1.5μV p-p at 10μV/div.

FIGURE 44.

Group C: Single CMOS Op-Amps

I did not include or test any of these; I tested the more popular
dual amplifiers.
20194964

www.national.com 16
 AN-1485
Group D: Dual CMOS Op-Amps
These are all rated to run on ±7.5 volts. I operated them on
±5.0 volts, and I required them to drive a 1 kilohm load to ±4
volts.
Test D01 is the basic old LMC662, a dual version of the
LMC660, NSC's first CMOS amplifier. Its gain error looks
quite non-linear; however, it is really not bad. The peak error
is 27μV p-p, and the p-p nonlinear error is about 13μV p-p. If
tested with a 4k load, it would have a nonlinearity of better
than 1 ppm (as a unity-gain inverter, for example). The de-
signer, Dennis Monticelli, pointed out that this amplifier design
has 3 honest gain stages for sinking current (left side of the
trace) but 4 stages of gain for sourcing current (right side of
the trace). Since gain for sourcing current is usually consid- 20194901
ered more important, he let the design go as "plenty good Test D01, LMC662, F = 6 Hz.
enough". I tend to agree that a linearity of 1 ppm is "plenty VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak.
good enough" for any general-purpose amplifier. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 10μV/div.
Here is an amplifier where the output impedance really is high. Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 27μV p-p at 10μV/div.
When the load is lightened from 1k to 2k, 4k, 8k, etc., the gain
keeps going up. How high does it go? It's almost impossible FIGURE 45.
to resolve how high the gain goes, or how high the output
impedance is. The gain goes up by AT LEAST a factor of 30, The traces on D01B are for the same amplifier. In the top-
and quite possibly 60 or more. So the output impedance goes most trace, a 500 pF filter capacitor is added across the 1
up to at least 30k, and maybe 100 or 200k. Is the exact num- megohm gain-setting resistor in Figure 7, to cut the noise a
ber important? Is it important if the gain goes up to 4 million, little. The middle trace shows how noisy this set-up was, when
or 8 million? In theory, it is fun to imagine that a gain of 4 I neglected to ground the operator's body while pushing the
million is not quite as good as 8 million. Or that if the gain goes shutter button! The standard noise was on the lower trace.
up to 8 million, then the low-frequency gain roll-off starts Note that even though these traces seem noisy, the noise is
falling from the DC gain of 8 million at 0.1 Hz. But as you can barely 3 or 4 μV p-p, and the gain errors as large as 1 or 2μV
see, these amplifiers are well-behaved, and the loop is obvi- can be resolved, nicely.
ously stable for all conditions. If you only looked at the left-
hand side (Vout = negative) where the output is sinking load
current, the gain may be finite, but this amplifier is very well
behaved. Likewise on the right-hand side, it is a very high-
gain amplifier -- and very well behaved. If the amplifier runs
anywhere in the middle, or on either end -- the amplifier is
STILL very well-behaved. It just has a small bit of nonlinearity.
We don't usually think of 1 ppm as a significant amount of non-
linearity -- but that is the only thing wrong with this amplifier!
We are discussing this at great length, primarily because it
shows that very high gain, whether at no load or at heavy load,
does not cause any problems. Also because several other
CMOS amplifiers have very similar characteristics.

20194902
Test D01B, LMC662, F = 6 Hz.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 27μV p-p at 20μV/div., C= 500pF.
Middle Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 27μV p-p at 20μV/div., with 60 Hz Am-
bient Noise..
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 27μV p-p at 20μV/div., Normal Test.

FIGURE 46.

17 www.national.com
AN-1485 Test D02 is a LMC6492, a standard CMOS amplifier similar Test D05A is a micropower amplifier, the LMC6572, drawing
to the LMC6482, with rail-to-rail inputs and output, rated from just 40 μA of current. Even though it is running very lean, in-
-40 to + 125 degrees C. ternally, it can drive a ± 4 mA load with a gain over 1 million,
and a nonlinearity better than 0.2 ppm. It is characterized
down to 2.7 volts of power supply.

20194971 20194904
Test D02, LMC6492, F = 6 Hz. Test D05A, LMC6572, F = 0.8 Hz.
VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak. VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 10μV/div. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 2μV p-p at 10μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 22μV p-p at 10μV/div. Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 5μV p-p at 10μV/div.

FIGURE 47. FIGURE 49.

Test D03 is a standard CMOS amplifier, the LMC6482, similar Test D06A is an LMC6042, another micropower amplifier,
to LMC6492, rated from -40 to +85 degrees C. Its gain curves running on just 10 μA. Its gain and linearity are about as good
are - typical. as the previous example, with a gain over 1 million and gain
linearity below 0.2 ppm. It is only rated to run from + 15 volts
down to + 5 volts of total power supply.
Test D06B is another LMC6042.

20194972
Test D03, LMC6482, F = 6 Hz.
20194905
VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak.
Test D06A, LMC6042, F = 0.6 Hz.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 10μV/div.
VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 18μV p-p at 10μV/div.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 2μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 6μV p-p at 20μV/div.
FIGURE 48.
FIGURE 50.

www.national.com 18
 AN-1485
Test D08 is the LMC6062, a precision amplifier with Vos as
good as 350 μV, max. Its linearity is down near 0.2 ppm.

20194906
Test D06B, LMC6042, F = 0.6 Hz
VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 3μV p-p at 20μV/div. 20194908
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 6μV p-p at 20μV/div. Test D08, LMC6062, F = 0.6 Hz.
VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±3.5, –4.5 volts peak, Iout = 8 mA p-p.
FIGURE 51. Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 3μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 6μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Test D07B is another low-power amplifier, requiring less than
100 μA per channel. Its nonlinearity is down below 0.3 ppm. FIGURE 53.
As noted earlier, our testing with triangle waves help us re-
solve non-linearities below 1 ppm. If we were testing with sine
waves, as in the lower trace, it would be hard to resolve these
small sub-ppm errors.

20194907
Test D07B, LMC6022, F = 2 Hz.
VS = ±5 Vdc; Vout = ±4 volts peak, Iout = ±4 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 4μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Middle Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 7μV p-p at 20μV/div. (TRIANGLE)
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 7μV p-p at 20μV/div. (SINE)

FIGURE 52.

19 www.national.com
AN-1485 Test E03 is an LMV771, with mediocre gain in both directions!
Group E: Low-Voltage Single It looks awful - yet the nonlinearity with a 4k load would be still
Amplifiers ( ± 2.5-volt Supplies) be better than 1/2 ppm.
Test E01 is the LMV715, a low-voltage amplifier. Its linearity
is as good as 1.5 ppm, 3μV p-p at the input compared to 4
volts p-p of output swing.Of course, at lighter loads, the lin-
earity would improve.

20194912
Test E03, LMV771, F = ~6 Hz.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 5μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 3μV p-p at 5μV/div.
20194910
Test E01, LMV715, F = 26 Hz.
FIGURE 56.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 2μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Test E04 is an LMV301 (bipolar, not CMOS) with very high
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 12μV p-p at 20μV/div.
gain and linearity better than 1/2 ppm.
FIGURE 54.

Test E02 is an LMV751. This amplifier has poorer gain for

positive swings (sourcing current). The no-load gain curve
(lower trace) is obviously well under 1 μV p-p. The linearity
with a 4k load would be slightly better than 1 ppm, even
though the gain error looks pretty bad! The LMV751 has very
low noise, about 6.5 nV per square-root Hertz.

20194913
Test E04, LMV301, F = 12 Hz.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 2μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 4μV p-p at 20μV/div.

FIGURE 57.

20194911
Test E02, LMV751, F = 12 Hz.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 11μV p-p at 5μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 5μV/div.

FIGURE 55.

www.national.com 20
 AN-1485
Test F02 is an LMV932, with 1/4 ppm, most of which is its
Group F: Low-Voltage Duals cross-over distortion.
(± 2.5-volt Supplies)
Test F01A is the LMP2012, a chopper-stabilized amplifier
with gain well over 2 million. The linearity seems to be better
than 1/4 ppm. The offset voltage is typically below 4μV.

20194916
Test F02, LMV932, F = 12 Hz.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 3μV p-p at 20μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 8μV p-p at 20μV/div.
20194914
Test F01A, LMP2012, Side A, F = 2 Hz.
FIGURE 60.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 10μV/div.
Test F03
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 2μV p-p at 10μV/div.
The low-voltage LMV358 does not have the exact same
FIGURE 58. shape of nonlinearity as the LM358 (see test B01, Figure 35)
but a somewhat different shape. Its gain is OK, but its non-
Trace F01D is an LMP2012 with the 500 pF filter capacitor linearity when driving a 4 kilohm load is about 6 ppm. This is
added, to help resolve the signals down in the noise; linearity noticeably inferior to many other modern op-amps -- but yet,
is still below 1/4 ppm. when do you measure an amplifier with linearity worse than
3 ppm, or complain about it? As with the LM358, the LMV358
can provide excellent linearity if the output has a pre-load
(pull-down or pull-up resistor) connected.

20194915
Test F01D, LMP2012, Side B, F = ~2 Hz.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 1μV p-p at 10μV/div. 20194917
Test F03, LMV358, F = 20 Hz.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 3μV p-p at 10μV/div.
VS = ±2.5 Vdc; Vout = ±2 volts peak, Iout = ±2 mA peak.
FIGURE 59. Upper Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 150μV p-p at 50μV/div.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 5μV p-p at 20μV/div.

FIGURE 61.

21 www.national.com
AN-1485 Test X06 is a very low-voltage amplifier, running on ±0.45 used with excellent accuracy and linearity. And of course,
volts, with gain error below 7μV p-p, and linearity near 2 ppm. many applications do not require linearity better than 1 ppm!
Amplifiers are not simple. Silicon is not simple. Understanding
circuits is not simple, but it is possible.

Appendix A: List of Amplifiers with

Low and Lower Distortion
The testing of amplifiers in this Applications Note was done
on amplifiers that were mostly rated with a 2 kilohm load. I ran
most of the tests with a heavy load of 1 kilohm, to make sure
I had enough nonlinearity to see a signal.
For this Appendix, the engineering was done for a 10k/10k
unity-gain inverter, with a 6.67k load, making a virtual 4 kilohm
total load, so the nonlinearity would be done with a moderate
load (half the current of the rated 2k load, not double the cur-
rent). The nonlinearity was sort of interpolated as 1/4 of the
nonlinearity with a 1k load. As you will see, many of the am-
plifiers have surprisingly good linearity, even though the
20194973 curves with RL = 1k looked pretty bad. They are listed in order
Test X06, LMV751 F = 75 Hz. of improving linearity. All data are approximate, and typical.
VS = ±0.5 Vdc; Vout = ±0.4 volts peak, Iout = ±0.4 mA Peak. No data are guaranteed. Availability of old amplifier types de-
Upper Trace: Gain Error, No Load, 7μV p-p at 10μV/div. noted by * is not guaranteed, and are very unlikely.
Lower Trace: Gain Error, Full Load, 20μV p-p at 10μV/div.
Example: An LM709, per the data shown on Test A01, has a
100μV p-p nonlinear error at its summing point, driving a 1 k
FIGURE 62.
load. That is the total p-p deviation from the best-fit straight
line. When it is driving 4k of total load, the error would be
Conclusions 25μV p-p, referred to input. The 709's error will be decreased
quite strictly by this factor of 4, because it is a thermal error,
There are many interesting things to learn about an amplifier's
which heats the input transistors in a highly predictable way.
gain, not just one number on a datasheet. Not all amplifiers
are the same - or even SIMILAR!! Amplifiers with output fol- A unity gain inverter runs at a Noise Gain of 2, so its output
lowers are not simple to analyze, when thermal errors can would have 50μV p-p. Its output swing is 20 volts p-p. There-
cause bigger errors than the gain error. CMOS amplifiers with fore we will call the distortion, 2.5 ppm, as it is 2.5 ppm of the
high output impedance, would seem to have a major source total output swing. All other amplifiers get the same conver-
of error at heavy loads, but in actuality, good amplifiers can sion done for them. It is true that SOME amplifiers will not
drive loads with accuracy and linearity much better than 1 improve by this transformation, by the exact factor of 4, but it
ppm. A high output impedance can allow the gain to go ex- is still approximately correct. The computations were done in
tremely high at light loads, and this may be useful in precision terms of p-p errors, as RMS computations would probably not
applications. be applicable for such nonlinear signals. If you wanted an
LM709 to have better linearity than 2.5 ppm, you could run it
Design Engineers have many things to think about. The gain
with a lighter load, or, choose a better amplifier. Or get a
for positive outputs versus negative outputs may be important
helper amplifier to put out most of the load current.
for precision amplifiers. Thermal problems may also have to
be studied, in areas where computers are not helpful.
Mask Designers have to be concerned with precise place-
ment of critical components. They have to make sure they are
given complete instructions on placement and matching.
Applications Engineers have to measure and characterize the
new amplifiers, to make sure the characteristics are as good
as expected. The data sheet may need to be revised, to show
good or bad features of an amplifier's gain.
The Customer does not have to worry so much about the in-
ternal design of the amplifier, but he/she may have to be
concerned, for critical applications, about some of these fea-
tures of amplifiers.

Philosophical Insights
Many engineers have opinions or preconceptions that oper-
ational amplifiers made with bipolar transistors have better,
higher voltage gain than CMOS amplifiers. Many people have
a sense that bipolar op-amps are more linear than CMOS
amplifiers. We have showed that this is not exactly true. There
are many amplifiers of each Type that are very good -- with
linearity better than 0.3 parts per million. Some are barely as
good as 2 parts per million -- but at light loads, they can be

www.national.com 22
 AN-1485
Amplifiers with Bipolar Transistors Low Voltage Amplifiers with ~ Rail-
and with ± 10-Volt output swing to-Rail outputs and with ± 2-Volt
(supplies = ± 15 volts) output swing (supplies = ± 2.5 volts)
Type Test Nonlinearity Type Test Nonlinearity
LM8262 (B10B) 12 ppm LMV358 (F03) 6 ppm
LF442 (B03) 8 ppm (light load) LMV715 (E01) 1 ppm
LM6182 (B06) 6 ppm LMV771 (E04) 0.6 ppm
LM709* (A01) 2.5 ppm LMV751 (E02) 0.4 ppm
LM318 (A06) 2.1 ppm LMV771 (E03) 0.4 ppm
LM741 (A03) 2 ppm LMV932 (F02) 0.3 ppm
LM301A (A02) 1.5 ppm LMP2012 (F01A) 0.2 ppm
LM10 (A12) 1.5 ppm
LF411 (A08) 1.4 ppm
Very Low Voltage Amplifier with ~
LM308 (A05) 1.3 ppm
Rail-to-Rail outputs and with ±
0.4Volt output swing (supplies = ±
LM1458 (B05) 1.3 ppm
0.5 volts)
LM307J (A14) 1.3 ppm
Type Test Nonlinearity
LF356 (A09) 1.2 ppm
LMV751 (X06) 5 ppm
LM358N (B01) 1.0 ppm
LM6142 (B07) 0.5 ppm Footnotes
OP-07* (A07) 0.4 ppm 1. Ideal amplifiers are characterized in T. Frederiksen's book,
LM833N (B04) 0.4 ppm "Intuitive IC Opamps", NSC 1984, p. 23.
2. Some wise engineers have pointed out that even a "rail-to-
LF412N (B02) 0.3 ppm
rail" output stage can not literally swing all the way to the rail,
LM6152 (B08) 0.3 ppm even driving as light a load as a megohm, or even 10
LM607* (A10) 0.12 ppm megohms. There are practical reasons why an amplifier can
not drive a 1 or 10 μA load much closer than 10 or 20 mV to
LM725* (A04) 0.10 ppm
either power supply rail: if they tried to run with such a starved
LM627* (A11) 0.04 ppm bias, the output loops would go out of control. For loads as
LM4562 (B10) 0.025 ppm heavy as 100 μA, 20 to 50 mV is a practical overhead or "drop-
out" limitation. For 1 or 2 mA, the drop-out is in the vicinity of
* Amplifiers denoted by * are obsolete and are no longer available from NSC. 100 to 200 mV. For typical real data, refer to the specific
amplifier's data sheet. The typical curves of "Output Charac-
CMOS AMPLIFIERS with ~ Rail-to- teristics, Current Sourcing" and "Output Characteristics, Cur-
Rail outputs and with ± 4-Volt output rent Sinking" will show what you can expect to get, for this
swing (supplies = ± 5 volts) dropout. It may not be terribly small, but at moderate loads, it
is a lot better than the 600 or 700 mv of the best amplifiers
Type Test Nonlinearity
with emitter followers.
LMC662 (D01) 1.4 ppm 3. "What's All This Common-Centroid Stuff, Anyhow?" http://
LMC6482 (D03) 1.1 ppm www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=6121
R. A. Pease, Electronic Design, October 1, 1996.
LMC6492 (D02) 1.1 ppm
4. "What's All This Output Impedance Stuff, Anyhow?" R. A.
LMC6022 (D07B) 0.3 ppm Pease, Electronic Design.
LMC6042 (D06A) 0.3 ppm 5. Appendix A., List of Operational amplifiers with low distor-
LMC6062 (D08) 0.2 ppm tion at dc and low frequencies
LMC6572 (D05A) 0.2 ppm

23 www.national.com
The Effect of Heavy Loads on the Accuracy and Linearity of
Operational Amplifier Circuits
Notes

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