10/25/2018 Design differentiator

circuit using OP-AMP

Basic Electronics Project

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 Index
Serial Date Contents Page Teacher’s Remarks
no. no.
1. 25/10/2018 OP-AMP
2. 25/10/2018 The differentiator
Amplifier
3. 25/10/2018 Equivalent Circuit of an
Ideal Operational
Amplifier
4. 25/10/2018 Op-amp Parameter and
Idealized Characteristic
5. 25/10/2018 Op-amp Differentiator
Circuit
6. 25/10/2018 Op-amp Differentiator
Waveforms
7. 25/10/2018 Improved Op-amp
Differentiator Amplifier
8. 25/10/2018 Frequency Response
9. 25/10/2018 Practical Differentiator
Amplifier
10. 25/10/2018 The Relation between
input and output
11. 25/10/2018 Conclusions

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 Guru Nanak Institute of Technology
APPLIED SCIENCE AND HUMANITY DEPARTMENT

Basic Electronics Project

Stream:- COMPUTER SCIENCE ENGINEERING
Section:- 2
Group No.:- 5
Group Members:- 6
NAME OF THE GROUP ROLL No. OF THE GROUP
MEMBER MEMBER
Sourav Hazra 103
Souvik Banerjee 105
Subarna Guin 106
Sukanya Bhattacharya 113
Suman kumar Chakraborty 115
Tiyas ghosh 121

PROJECT GUIDE:- Koushik Pal.

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 OP-AMP:-
Operational amplifiers are linear devices that have all the properties required for nearly ideal
DC amplification and are therefore used extensively in signal conditioning, filtering or to
perform mathematical operations such as add, subtract, integration and differentiation.
An Operational Amplifier, or op-amp for short, is fundamentally a voltage amplifying
device designed to be used with external feedback components such as resistors and
capacitors between its output and input terminals. These feedback components determine the
resulting function or “operation” of the amplifier and by virtue of the different feedback
configurations whether resistive, capacitive or both, the amplifier can perform a variety of
different operations, giving rise to its name of “Operational Amplifier”. An Operational
Amplifier is basically a three-terminal device which consists of two high impedance inputs.
One of the inputs is called the Inverting Input, marked with a negative or “minus” sign,
( – ). The other input is called the Non-inverting Input, marked with a positive or “plus”
sign ( + ). A third terminal represents the operational amplifiers output port which can both
sink and source either a voltage or a current. In a linear operational amplifier, the output
signal is the amplification factor, known as the amplifiers gain ( A ) multiplied by the value
of the input signal and depending on the nature of these input and output signals, there can be
four different classifications of operational amplifier gain. An operational amplifier (op-amp)
is a linear integrated circuit that incorporates a DC-coupled, high-gain differential amplifier
and other circuitry that give it specific characteristics. The ideal op-amp has certain
unattainable specifications, but hundreds of types of operational amplifiers are available,
which vary in specific ways from the ideal op-amp. Important specifications include very
large open-loop gain, high input impedance, and low output impedance. There are other
specifications for op-amp that are important in certain applications. These specifications can
be divided into two categories: DC parameters and AC parameters. DC parameters include
input bias current, input offset current and input offset voltage. Input bias current ( IBias ) is
the average of the input currents required at each input terminal of the op-amp. Input offset
current ( IOS ) is the absolute value of the difference between the DC bias currents.

 Voltage – Voltage “in” and Voltage “out”

 Current – Current “in” and Current “out”
 Transconductance – Voltage “in” and Current “out”
 Transresistance – Current “in” and Voltage “out”
Since most of the circuits dealing with operational amplifiers are voltage amplifiers, we will
limit the tutorials in this section to voltage amplifiers only, (Vin and Vout).
The output voltage signal from an Operational Amplifier is the difference between the signals
being applied to its two individual inputs. In other words, an op-amps output signal is the
difference between the two input signals as the input stage of an Operational Amplifier is in
fact a differential amplifier as shown below.
IBias IB1 2IB2 (1)

Ios IB1 IB2 (2)

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Input offset voltage ( VIO ) is the amount of voltage that must be applied between the input
terminals of an op-amp to give zero output voltage.

Since the input stage of all op-amps is a differential amplifier, there are two inputs marked
with the symbols (+) and (-). These symbols refer to the phase of the output signal compared
to the input signal and should be read as non-inverting (+) and inverting (-) rather than “plus”
or “minus”. If the non-inverting input is more positive than the inverting input, the output
will be positive. If the inverting input is more positive, then the output will be negative. The
symbol for an op-amp is shown in Figure 1(a). Figure 1(b) shows a typical 8-pin dual-in-
package (DIP) with an identifier for pin 1. And Figure 2 shows the pin diagram for LM 741
op-amp.

Fig.1: (a) The Symbol for an Op-Amp (b) Typical 8-pin DIP Op-Amp

The Differentiator Amplifier:-

The basic operational amplifier differentiator circuit produces an output signal which is the
first derivative of the input signal. A differentiator circuit produces an output that is
proportional to the derivative or rate of change of the input voltage over time. Differentiator
circuit can be constructed as shown using an operational amplifier, a resistor, and a capacitor.
Unlike an ideal integrator circuit where the slightest DC offset in the input eventually drives
the output into saturation, for the differentiator we need not be concerned about a DC offset
in the input since the derivative of a constant is always zero. The circuit below shows a
generalized form of a differential amplifier with two inputs marked V1 and V2. The two identical
transistors TR1 and TR2 are both biased at the same operating point with their emitters connected
together and returned to the common rail, -Vee by way of resistor Re.

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The circuit operates from a dual supply +Vcc and -Vee which ensures a constant supply. The
voltage that appears at the output, Vout of the amplifier is the difference between the two
input signals as the two base inputs are in anti-phasewith each other.
So as the forward bias of transistor, TR1 is increased, the forward bias of transistor TR2 is
reduced and vice versa. Then if the two transistors are perfectly matched, the current flowing
through the common emitter resistor, Rewill remain constant.
Like the input signal, the output signal is also balanced and since the collector voltages either
swing in opposite directions (anti-phase) or in the same direction (in-phase) the output
voltage signal, taken from between the two collectors is, assuming a perfectly balanced
circuit the zero difference between the two collector voltages.
This is known as the Common Mode of Operation with the common mode gain of the
amplifier being the output gain when the input is zero.
Operational Amplifiers also have one output (although there are ones with an additional
differential output) of low impedance that is referenced to a common ground terminal and it
should ignore any common mode signals that is, if an identical signal is applied to both the
inverting and non-inverting inputs there should no change to the output.
However, in real amplifiers there is always some variation and the ratio of the change to the
output voltage with regards to the change in the common mode input voltage is called
the Common Mode Rejection Ratio or CMRR for short.
Operational Amplifiers on their own have a very high open loop DC gain and by applying
some form of Negative Feedback we can produce an operational amplifier circuit that has a
very precise gain characteristic that is dependant only on the feedback used. Note that the
term “open loop” means that there are no feedback components used around the amplifier so
the feedback path or loop is open.
An operational amplifier only responds to the difference between the voltages on its two
input terminals, known commonly as the “Differential Input Voltage” and not to their
common potential. Then if the same voltage potential is applied to both terminals the
resultant output will be zero. An Operational Amplifiers gain is commonly known as
the Open Loop Differential Gain, and is given the symbol (Ao).

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 Equivalent Circuit of an Ideal Operational Amplifier:-

Op-amp Parameter and Idealized Characteristic:-

 Open Loop Gain, (Avo)

o Infinite – The main function of an operational amplifier is to amplify the input

signal and the more open loop gain it has the better. Open-loop gain is the gain of
the op-amp without positive or negative feedback and for such an amplifier the
gain will be infinite but typical real values range from about 20,000 to 200,000.

 Input impedance, (ZIN)

o Infinite – Input impedance is the ratio of input voltage to input current and is
assumed to be infinite to prevent any current flowing from the source supply into
the amplifiers input circuitry ( IIN = 0 ). Real op-amps have input leakage currents
from a few pico-amps to a few milli-amps.

 Output impedance, (ZOUT)

o Zero – The output impedance of the ideal operational amplifier is assumed to be

zero acting as a perfect internal voltage source with no internal resistance so that
it can supply as much current as necessary to the load. This internal resistance is

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 effectively in series with the load thereby reducing the output voltage available to
the load. Real op-amps have output impedances in the 100-20kΩ range.

 Bandwidth, (BW)

o Infinite – An ideal operational amplifier has an infinite frequency response and

can amplify any frequency signal from DC to the highest AC frequencies so it is
therefore assumed to have an infinite bandwidth. With real op-amps, the
bandwidth is limited by the Gain-Bandwidth product (GB), which is equal to the
frequency where the amplifiers gain becomes unity.

 Offset Voltage, (VIO)

o Zero – The amplifiers output will be zero when the voltage difference between
the inverting and the non-inverting inputs is zero, the same or when both inputs
are grounded. Real op-amps have some amount of output offset voltage.

From these “idealized” characteristics above, we can see that the input resistance is infinite,
so no current flows into either input terminal (the “current rule”) and that the differential
input offset voltage is zero (the “voltage rule”). It is important to remember these two
properties as they will help us understand the workings of the Operational Amplifier with
regards to the analysis and design of op-amp circuits.
However, real Operational Amplifiers such as the commonly available uA741, for example
do not have infinite gain or bandwidth but have a typical “Open Loop Gain” which is defined
as the amplifiers output amplification without any external feedback signals connected to it
and for a typical operational amplifier is about 100dB at DC (zero Hz). This output gain
decreases linearly with frequency down to “Unity Gain” or 1, at about 1MHz and this is
shown in the following open loop gain response curve.
Here, the position of the capacitor and resistor have been reversed and now the reactance, XC
is connected to the input terminal of the inverting amplifier while the resistor, Rƒ forms the
negative feedback element across the operational amplifier as normal. This operational
amplifier circuit performs the mathematical operation of Differentiation, that is it “produces
a voltage output which is directly proportional to the input voltage’s rate-of-change with
respect to time”. In other words the faster or larger the change to the input voltage signal, the
greater the input current, the greater will be the output voltage change in response, becoming
more of a “spike” in shape. As with the integrator circuit, we have a resistor and capacitor
forming an RC Network across the operational amplifier and the reactance ( Xc ) of the
capacitor plays a major role in the performance of a Op-amp Differentiator.

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Op-amp Differentiator Circuit:-

The input signal to the differentiator is applied to the capacitor. The capacitor blocks any DC
content so there is no current flow to the amplifier summing point, X resulting in zero output
voltage. The capacitor only allows AC type input voltage changes to pass through and whose
frequency is dependant on the rate of change of the input signal.
At low frequencies the reactance of the capacitor is “High” resulting in a low gain ( Rƒ/Xc )
and low output voltage from the op-amp. At higher frequencies the reactance of the capacitor
is much lower resulting in a higher gain and higher output voltage from the differentiator
amplifier.
However, at high frequencies an op-amp differentiator circuit becomes unstable and will start
to oscillate. This is due mainly to the first-order effect, which determines the frequency
response of the op-amp circuit causing a second-order response which, at high frequencies
gives an output voltage far higher than what would be expected. To avoid this the high
frequency gain of the circuit needs to be reduced by adding an additional small value
capacitor across the feedback resistor Rƒ.
Ok, some math’s to explain what’s going on!. Since the node voltage of the
operational amplifier at its inverting input terminal is zero, the current, i flowing
through the capacitor will be given as:

The charge on the capacitor equals Capacitance times Voltage across the capacitor:

Thus the rate of change of this charge is:

but dQ/dt is the capacitor current, i

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 from which we have an ideal voltage output for the op-amp differentiator is given as:

Therefore, the output voltage Vout is a constant –Rƒ*C times the derivative of the input
voltage Vin with respect to time. The minus sign (–) indicates a 180o phase shift because the
input signal is connected to the inverting input terminal of the operational amplifier.
One final point to mention, the Op-amp Differentiator circuit in its basic form has two main
disadvantages compared to the previous operational amplifier integrator circuit. One is that it
suffers from instability at high frequencies as mentioned above, and the other is that the
capacitive input makes it very susceptible to random noise signals and any noise or
harmonics present in the source circuit will be amplified more than the input signal itself.
This is because the output is proportional to the slope of the input voltage so some means of
limiting the bandwidth in order to achieve closed-loop stability is required.

Op-amp Differentiator Waveforms:-

If we apply a constantly changing signal such as a Square-wave, Triangular or Sine-wave
type signal to the input of a differentiator amplifier circuit the resultant output signal will be
changed and whose final shape is dependant upon the RC time constant of the
Resistor/Capacitor combination.

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Improved Op-amp Differentiator Amplifier:-
The basic single resistor and single capacitor op-amp differentiator circuit is not widely used
to reform the mathematical function
of Differentiation because of the two inherent faults mentioned above, “Instability” and
“Noise”. So in order to reduce the overall closed-loop gain of the circuit at high frequencies,
an extra resistor, Rin is added to the input as shown below.

Adding the input resistor RIN limits the differentiators increase in gain at a ratio of Rƒ/RIN
The circuit now acts like a differentiator amplifier at low frequencies and an amplifier with
resistive feedback at high frequencies giving much better noise rejection.
Additional attenuation of higher frequencies is accomplished by connecting a capacitor
Cƒ in parallel with the differentiator feedback resistor, Rƒ. This then forms the basis of
a Active High Pass Filter as we have seen before in the filters section.

Fig.2: Differentiator Circuit

Since the output voltage of a differentiated is proportional to the input frequency, high
frequency signals (such as electrical noise) may saturate or cutoff the amplifier. For this
reason:- a resistor is placed in series with the capacitor in the input as shown in Figure 5.
This establishes high frequency limit beyond which differentiation no longer occurs: -

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2R Cin in To achieve greater attenuation at higher frequencies (or prevent oscillation), a
feedback capacitor is added in parallel with the
feedback resistor. This establishes another break
frequency that can be calculated as in the
integrator.

Fig.3: Stable Differentiator Circuit

Frequency Response:-
The frequency response of an amplifier is the variation in the output as the frequency is
varied. The analysis of the frequency response of an amplifier can be considered in three
frequency ranges: the low-, mid-, and high-frequency regions. In the low-frequency region
the capacitors used for DC isolation (AC coupling) and bypass operation affect the lower
cutoff (lower 3-dB) frequency. In the mid- frequency range only resistive elements affect the
gain, the gain remaining constant. In the high-frequency region of operation, stray wiring
capacitances and device inter-terminal capacitances will determine the circuit's upper cutoff
frequency.

Open-loop Frequency Response Curve:-

From this frequency response curve we can see that the product of the gain against frequency
is constant at any point along the curve. Also that the unity gain (0dB) frequency also

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determines the gain of the amplifier at any point along the curve. This constant is generally
known as the Gain Bandwidth Product or GBP. Therefore:
GBP = Gain x Bandwidth = A x BW
For example, from the graph above the gain of the amplifier at 100kHz is given as 20dB or
10, then the gain bandwidth product is calculated as:
GBP = A x BW = 10 x 100,000Hz = 1,000,000.
Similarly, the operational amplifiers gain at 1kHz = 60dB or 1000, therefore the GBP is given
as:
GBP = A x BW = 1,000 x 1,000Hz = 1,000,000. The same!.
The Voltage Gain (AV) of the operational amplifier can be found using the following
formula:

and in Decibels or (dB) is given as:

An Operational Amplifiers Bandwidth:-

The operational amplifiers bandwidth is the frequency range over which the voltage gain of
the amplifier is above 70.7% or -3dB (where 0dB is the maximum) of its maximum output
value as shown below.

Here we have used the 40dB line as an example. The -3dB or 70.7% of Vmax down point
from the frequency response curve is given as 37dB. Taking a line across until it intersects
with the main GBP curve gives us a frequency point just above the 10kHz line at about 12 to

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15kHz. We can now calculate this more accurately as we already know the GBP of the
amplifier, in this particular case 1MHz.

Operational Amplifier Example No.1:-

Using the formula 20 log (A), we can calculate the bandwidth of the amplifier as:
37 = 20 log (A) therefore, A = anti-log (37 ÷ 20) = 70.8
GBP ÷ A = Bandwidth, therefore, 1,000,000 ÷ 70.8 = 14,124Hz, or 14kHz
Then the bandwidth of the amplifier at a gain of 40dB is given as 14kHz as previously
predicted from the graph.

Operational Amplifier Example No.2:-

If the gain of the operational amplifier was reduced by half to say 20dB in the above
frequency response curve, the -3dB point would now be at 17dB. This would then give the
operational amplifier an overall gain of 7.08, therefore A = 7.08.
If we use the same formula as above, this new gain would give us a bandwidth of
approximately 141.2kHz, ten times more than the frequency given at the 40dB point. It can
therefore be seen that by reducing the overall “open loop gain” of an operational amplifier its
bandwidth is increased and visa versa.
In other words, an operational amplifiers bandwidth is inversely proportional to its gain,
( A 1/∞ BW ). Also, this -3dB corner frequency point is generally known as the “half power
point”, as the output power of the amplifier is at half its maximum value as shown:

Operational Amplifiers Summary:-

We know now that an Operational amplifiers is a very high gain DC differential amplifier
that uses one or more external feedback networks to control its response and characteristics.
We can connect external resistors or capacitors to the op-amp in a number of different ways
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to form basic “building Block” circuits such as, Inverting, Non-Inverting, Voltage Follower,
Summing, Differential, Integrator and Differentiator type amplifiers.

Op-amp Symbol
An “ideal” or perfect operational amplifier is a device with certain special characteristics
such as infinite open-loop gain AO, infinite input resistance RIN, zero output resistance ROUT,
infinite bandwidth 0 to ∞ and zero offset (the output is exactly zero when the input is zero).
There are a very large number of operational amplifier IC’s available to suit every possible
application from standard bipolar, precision, high-speed, low-noise, high-voltage, etc, in
either standard configuration or with internal Junction FET transistors.
Operational amplifiers are available in IC packages of either single, dual or quad op-amps
within one single device. The most commonly available and used of all operational amplifiers
in basic electronic kits and projects is the industry standard μA-741.

In the next tutorial about Operational Amplifiers, we will use negative feedback connected
around the op-amp to produce a standard closed-loop amplifier circuit called an Inverting
Amplifier circuit that produces an output signal which is 180o “out-of-phase” with the input

Practical Differentiator Amplifier:-

The ideal differentiator is inherently unstable in practice due to the presence of some high
frequency noise in every electronic system. An ideal differentiator would amplify this small
noise. For instance, if vnoise = Asin(wt) is differentiated, the output would be vout = Awcos(wt).
Even if A = 1mV, when w = 2p(10MHz) vout would have an amplitude of 63V! To circumvent
this problem, it is traditional to include a series resistor at the input and a parallel capacitor
across the feedback resistor as shown in figure 2, converting the differentiator to an integrator
at high frequencies for filtering.

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 The Relation between input and output:-
To draw the Relation between the input and the output fig.4, we taken 10 values of input and
calculate the output.

Table 1:-Output voltage at different

input
Frequency Input Voltage (volt) Output Voltage (volt)
1 kHz 0 0
1 kHz 0.499 0.495
1 kHz 0.99 0.989
1 kHz 1.499 1.484
1 kHz 1.989 1.978
1 kHz 2.499 2.473
1 kHz 2.989 2.967
1 kHz 3.499 3.462
1 kHz 3.989 3.957
1 kHz 4.499 4.451

VIN = Am Sin (2π f t) where f = 1 kHz

VOut = Am (2π f) RC Cos (2π f t)

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 Input Output Relationship at
constant frequency
6

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Vin (volt)

Fig.4: the Relationship between the input and output

From the same expression” VOut = Am (2π f) RC Cos (2π f t)” and from the frequency
Response that see later, the differentiator begins differentiates the input at 10 Hz and to value
of output not exceed 20 V, then the differentiator work as inverting.

The Frequency Response:-

We apply the same expression to find the output voltage by:-VOut =Am (2π f) RC Cos(2π f t)

Table 2:- The output voltage at different

frequency
Frequency (Hz) Input Voltage (volt) Output Voltage (volt)
10 1 0.100013
50 1 0.500065
100 1 1.00013
150 1 1.500194
200 1 2.000259
246 1 2.460319
294 1 2.940381
342 1 3.420443
390 1 3.900506
438 1 4.380568
486 1 4.86063
534 1 5.340692
582 1 5.820754
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 630 1 6.300817
678 1 6.780879
726 1 7.260941
774 1 7.741003
822 1 8.221066
870 1 8.701128
918 1 9.18119
966 1 9.661252

Output Voltage at different frequency

25

20

15

10

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Frequency (Hz)

Fig.5: output voltage with respect to different frequency

7
Conclusions:-
1. In this project we came to know how to design differentiator circuit using OP-AMP as
shown above.
2. In this project we know that the practical differentiator is different than ideal. And
when you want to design the differentiator you must take many things in your
consideration, such as upper and lower cutoff frequency, and the band width of the
amplifier.
3. The relationship between input voltage and output voltage is linear in linear Region.

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