Op-Amp Circuits and Applications

Directions. All of the answer must be handwritten. Answer is placed after each of the question and in
blue ballpen.

Answer all the following.

1. What is a comparator?
2. What is the purpose of reference voltage in a comparator?
3. What is the effect of noise signal in the comparator?
4. What is the purpose of hysteresis in a comparator?
5. Define the term bounding in relation to a comparator’s output.
6. Define Analog-to-digital Converter (ADC).
7. Discuss and compare the binary weighted decimal and R2R ladder ADC.
8. what is the main purpose of an instrumentation amplifier and what are three of its
characteristics?
9. What components do you need to construct a basic instrumentation amplifier?
10. How is the gain determined in an instrumentation amplifier?
11. In a certain AD622 configuration, RG = 10kΩ. What is the voltage gain?
12. Describe the purpose of a shield guard.
13. In what types of applications are isolation amplifiers used?
14. How are the stages in an isolation amplifier connected?
15. What is the purpose of the oscillator in an isolation amplifier?
16. What is an Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA)?
17. If the bias current in an OTA is increased, does the transconductance increase or decrease?
18. What happens to the voltage gain if the OTA is connected as a fixed-voltage amplifier and the
supply voltages are increased?
19. What happens to the voltage gain if the OTA is connected as a variable –gain voltage amplifier
and the voltage at the bias terminal is decreased?
20. What purpose does the diode or transistor perform in the feedback loop of a log amplifier?
21. Why is the output of a log amplifier limited to about 0.7 V?
22. What are the factors that determine the output voltage of a basic log amplifier?
23. In terms of implementation, how does a basic antilog amplifier differ from a basic log amplifier?
24. What is a Constant-Current source?
25. How an op-amp can be used as current-to-voltage converter?
26. How an op-amp can be used as voltage-to-current converter?
27. What is a peak detector?