Op amp integrator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Op amp integrator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The operational amplifier integrator is an electronic integration circuit. Based around the operational amplifier (op-amp), it performs the mathematical operation of integration with respect to time; that is, its output voltage is proportional to the input voltage over time.

Contents
1 Ideal circuit 2 Practical circuit 3 Frequency response 4 Applications 5 References

Ideal circuit

Intuitively, the circuit operates by passing a current that charges or discharges the capacitor over time. If the op-amp is assumed ideal, nodes v1 and v2 are held equal, and so v2 is a virtual ground. The input voltage passes a current through the resistor and series capacitor, which charges or discharges the capacitor over time.

Because the resistor and capacitor are connected to a virtual ground, the input current does not vary with capacitor charge and a linear integration operation is achieved. The circuit can be analyzed by applying Kirchhoff's current law at the node v2, keeping ideal op-amp behaviour in mind.

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Op amp integrator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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in an ideal op-amp, so:

Furthermore, the capacitor has a voltage-current relationship governed by the equation:

Substituting the appropriate variables:

in an ideal op-amp, resulting in:

Integrating both sides with respect to time:

If the initial value of vo is assumed to be 0 V, this results in a DC error of:[1]

Practical circuit

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The ideal integrator seen above is not a practical circuit design. Non-ideal op-amps have a finite open-loop gain, an input offset voltage and input bias currents ( in the ideal circuit figure, above). This can cause several issues for the ideal design; most importantly, if , both the output offset voltage and the input bias current can cause current to pass through the capacitor, causing the output voltage to drift over time until the op-amp saturates. Similarly, if were a signal centered about zero volts (i.e. without a DC component), no drift would be expected in an ideal circuit, but may occur in a real circuit. In DC steady state, the capacitor acts as an open circuit. The DC gain of the ideal circuit is therefore infinite (or the open-loop gain of a non-ideal op-amp). A large resistor can be inserted in parallel with the feedback capacitor, as shown in the figure above. This limits the DC gain of the circuit to a finite value, and hence changes the output drift into a finite, preferably small, DC error:

where is the input offset voltage and indicates two resistance values in parallel.

is the input bias current on the inverting terminal.

Frequency response

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The frequency responses of the practical and ideal integrator are shown in the above figure. For both circuits, the crossover frequency , at which the gain is 0 dB, is given by:

The 3 dB cutoff frequency

of the practical circuit is given by:

The practical integrator circuit is equivalent to an active first-order low-pass filter. The gain is relatively constant up to the cutoff frequency decreases by 20 dB per decade beyond it. The integration operation occurs for frequencies in the range , provided that . This condition can be achieved by appropriate choice of and time constants.

Applications
The integrator is mostly used in analog computers, analog-to-digital converters and wave-shaping circuits.

References
1. ^ "AN1177 Op Amp Precision Design: DC Errors" (http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/AppNotes /01177a.pdf) (PDF). Microchip. 2 January 2008. Archived (http://www.webcitation.org/6Db011SaW) from the

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Op amp integrator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op_amp_integrator

original on 2013-01-11. Retrieved 26 December 2012.

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