Increase op amp output current capability with discrete circuit

Analog circuit designers facing limitations with output drive capability of commercial op amps have a number of options, depending upon the drive requirement needed. Commercially available op amps are typically limited - 20 to 40 mA to a connected load. It's possible (but not widely recommended) to merely connect multiple op amp outputs in parallel to achieve the drive requirement. The designer may realize that combined output drive is not the multiple of connected outputs unless the output characteristics of each op amp are matched. And youll need several in parallel to approach 100mA or higher. There are special analog buffers available to solve this problem, such as the TI/Burr Brown BUF634 high speed unity-gain buffer that may be used inside or outside of the op amp feedback loop. The BUF634 is a favorite for DIYer headphone amplifier applications, but it's an expensive component, and you might not want to wait a week or two for mail order delivery. I was designing a transistor curve tracer, and needed to be able to supply over 100mA to the base of the transistor under test (for power transistors). I needed to buffer a stair-step waveform output from an op amp with a high current final stage. I did a lot of online research, and found a number of circuit suggestions, all of which were simulated with LTSpice. Only one approach worked well - a variation of Sijosae's discrete BUF634 that headphone amp hobbyists were experimenting with. The circuit used for the curve tracer final base drive is shown below. There are a lot op amps to choose from, depending upon the application. I needed a non-inverting topology, which is shown. The choice of op amp feedback resistors is driven by desired gain, which I wanted to minimize to achieve nearly unity gain (G ~ 1.0). Note that the final output is fed back to the op amp negative input, so this output stage is within the loop, and is stable at low gain. Due to the low frequency of interest, I used a behavioral model op amp with unity gain BW of 1MHz. Scavenged 2SC4793/2SA1837 TO-220 transistors were used for the output stage, but you can substitute TIP31C/TIP32C transistors (or equivalent). The 2N4401/2N4403 inputs are not critical, nor are the FET current source transistors. I show graphs of the unity gain transient analysis response (@ 600 Hz) and the AC frequency response from 100Hz to 1MHz. As shown, the 3dB bandwidth of the entire circuit is just over 100KHz. This circuit was built and tested to deliver a 150mA undistorted 10-step stairstep waveform @ up to 6Volt peak, which will do the job. Vdd and Vee were tested at +/- 12 and +/- 15V. This may work at +/9V for battery applications, but that wasn't tested. For more information on this approach, go to diyaudioprojects.com or search with "Sijosae's discrete BUF634".

thomas.ritch@gmail.com

Nov. 21, 2012

Transient Analysis of Op Amp Buffer @ 600Hz, LTSpice (Vsrc is input)

Frequency Response of Op Amp Buffer 100Hz to 1MHz, LTSpice

thomas.ritch@gmail.com

Nov. 21, 2012