Latest Improvement in General Purpose Op Amps

Evolution of General-Purpose Operational Amplifiers

General purpose operational amplifiers or op amps have been around for many decades, from the 741 bipolar based in the 1960s to today’s CMOS based op amps. CMOS based general purpose op amps have been the staple process technology for several decades, and as analog process technology continues to improve, general purpose op amps are also getting better performance and lower cost. In this blog post, we will compare our first generation general purpose op amps introduced in the early 2000s vs. our latest offerings.

The MCP6001/2/4 (single, dual and quad channels) family of 1MHz general purpose op amp was introduced in the early 2000s. At the time for general purpose op amps, MCP6001/2/4 performance parameters like the quiescent current, input leakage current and voltage offset were class leading. Today’s general purpose op amps have overall better cost structure and performance than its predecessor. This is due to better analog CMOS process technology along with better design tools and circuit techniques. 

The table below is a comparison of our Gen1 1MHz dual channel MCP6002 vs. MCP6007. 

1MHz General Purpose Op Amps

Table 1: MCP6002 vs. MCP6007 (1MHz, Dual Ch)

In addition to overall improved performance, the MCP6007 family has better cost structure over the prior generation. For applications that are susceptible to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI), the integrated EMI filter with enhanced EMI performance can potentially reduce your BOM count and/or PCB complexity. All these 1, 3, 10 and 30MHz families are also automotive AEC-Q100 Grade 1 qualified, just like the gen 1 families. Finally, these new families have class leading startup time for battery powered applications.

As we were refreshing our 1MHz general purpose op amps, we also refreshed our 3MHz, 10MHz and 24MHz families. Here are the spec comparison tables for the rest of the 3, 10 and 30MHz families.

3MHz General Purpose Op Amps

Table 2: MCP602 vs. MCP6477 (3MHz, Dual Ch)

7.5-10MHz General Purpose Op Amps

Table 3: MCP6492 & MCP6292 vs. MCP6487 (7.5-10MHz, Dual Ch)

24-30MHz General Purpose Op Amps

Table 4: MCP632 vs. MCP6497 (24, 30MHz, Dual Ch)

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed the performance improvement of our latest general purpose 1, 3, 10 and 30MHz op amp families vs. past generation families. In addition to the same AEC-Q100 Grade 1 qualification, the new generation has better overall performance and cost structure. For customers seeking to be more future proof, we recommend looking at these new general purpose op amp families.