OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIERS

Lomba, John
BENCH #17 ELECTRONICS I (EECE 3110) 10/17/2016

 Summery
With the LM741 operational
amplifier (OP amp), several different
linear amplifier circuits are tested.
Using the LM741 OP amp for
designing a buffer, inverting amplifier,
summer, and comparator circuit
allows measurements and exploration
of operation. Included with the OP
amp distributed by Texas Instruments
is the datasheet with the minimum,
typical, and maximum rating and
specifications of the LM741. With the
datasheets brought into close
examination, and using the guide gave
experience in technical reading, and
helps understand the meaning of
specific specifications.
Alongside the OP amp circuit was a
power supply brick that provided 12V
from a 5V supply [1], and with
potentiometers voltage is varied as
necessary. Throughout the lab, the
rail voltage across the OP amp was
6.25V unless specified different. The
rail voltage was just enough for the
range of operation of the Analog
Discovery 2 voltage output which
varies from 5V [2]. However, during
operation of the buffer circuit the rails
limit the expected voltage output. The
rest of the measurements provided
prove the operation of the LM741
matches closely to expected results as
described in the equations within
specifications. As well as using a
decade resistance box attached to the
output of the OP amp changing the
load did not affect the voltage output.
Using just a potentiometer with the

12V power brick worked well but

required constant monitoring of
voltage with each change in load. The
datasheet seemingly complex is now
useful and information can be
efficiently extracted from such
documents.

Equipment
Digital multi-meter
Make: Fluke
Model: 45 Dual Display
Multimeter
S/N: 6D80002
Portable multi-meter
Make: MASTECH
Model: MAS830
S/N: 01DMMAS830T
Oscilloscope
Make: Agilent Technologies
Model: InfiniiVision DSO-X
2004A
S/N: MY52161212
Power supply
Make: GWinstek
Model: GPD-3303 series
S/N: EM823353
Analog Discovery 2
Make: Digilent
Model: Analog Discovery 2
S/N: 210321A2A3C8
Shoebox
2 multimeter probes
2 oscilloscope probes
2 BNC to male banana plug
adapter
1 BNC to female banana
plug adapter
2 BNC BNC cable
6 Alligator clips

Page 1 of 16
2 Banana clips of each color
2 BNC to grabber
LM741
Decade resistance box
Digilent Power Brick 12V
Resistors
Quantity
Resistance
(k )
1
1
1
2
4
20
1
24
3
10
Table 1 Resistance values used in the
lab.
Introduction
Using the LM741, many different
circuits can accomplish many different
operations including integration,
derivation, summations, comparisons,
scaling and much more. The main
objective of this report is to cover the
operation of the voltage follower or
buffer circuit, an inverting amplifier, a
summing amplifier, and a comparator
circuit. Before using any integrated
circuit (IC), it is important to inspect
the datasheet to understand the
minimum and maximum rating of the
IC. To understand variations in the
data compared to theoretical
expectation requires knowledge of
non-ideal discrepancies intrinsic to the
IC. Ideally, an IC would behave
exactly as the ideal situation predicts
however, due to various factors that is
not the case but the output is close
enough.
Most operational amplifiers require
enough voltage to accurately amplify

and represent the input signal at the

output terminal; failure to have
enough voltage will limit the output
according to the rail voltage [3]. To get
negative voltage a Digilent
PowerBRICK with 12V attached to
potentiometers was utilized to vary
the voltage at the amplifiers rail pins.
This miniature power-supply
configuration provides all the voltage
needed to accomplish the entire task
in conjunction with the Analog
Discover 2 voltage and signal outputs
as well.
The buffer circuit was the first
circuit analyzed with 6.25V on the
power rails and the inverting pin
shorted to the output. With this
configuration, the gain follows the
non-inverting amplifier equation.
=

=1+

(1.1)

Equation 1 Non-Inverting amplifier

gain.

0
= = 1 + = 1
(2.1)

(2.2)

Equation 2 Solving for Voltage output

in buffer circuit.
Solving for Vout shows the voltage
output will be the same as the voltage
input. In circuit two an inverting
amplifier was designed using a 2k
and 10k to start then later
redesigned using the 10k and a 25k

Page 2 of 16
resistor. The equation for Vout of the
inverting OP amp is as followed.
=

(3.1)

Equation 3 Inverting OP amp Vout.

Solving for the gain using Equation 3.
=

(4.1)

Equation 4 Solving for gain in the

inverting amplifier.
Using the Analog Discovery 2 power
supply different voltages applied at
the inverting terminal are amplified
according to the gain calculated with
Equation 4. The third circuit
measured is the summing amplifier
and when configured so all the
resistors are equal and the noninverting pin is set to ground the
output should give the negative
summation of the input voltages. This
is because if we look at Equation 3 for
the inverting OP amp we can see that
=
=

(5.1)

(5.2)

(5.3)

(5.4)

=
=

1 0
1

2 0
2

3 0

(5.5)

When R1 =R2 =R3 = Rf

=

1 +2 +3

(5.6)

Substitute Iin into the equation gives:

=

(1 +2 +3 )

(5.7)

(5.8)

= (1 + 2 + 3 )

Equation 5 Voltage output of the

summing amplifier with equal
resistors and non-inverting pin to
ground.
As described in Equation 5 regardless
of the resistor value as long as they
are all equal the voltage output should
ideally equal the negative summation
of all the input voltages. The last
circuit required designing a
comparator using two 10k resistors
for Rin and two 10k potentiometers
to vary a 5V source as the voltage
input. With no feedback resistor
attached to the output the open loop
gain for an ideal OP amp is infinity.
With an infinite gain on the output
depending on which voltage is greater
on the input pins will determine which
voltage is amplified by infinity
(infinite amplification results in
maximum OP amp output, saturation
differs with different IC and rail
voltage in this case 5V is saturation
point [3]). When the resistors on the
input pins are equal the equation
turns into a simple piece wise
function.

,
= { ,
0 ,

+ >
+ <
+ =

(6.1)

Equation 6 Comparator circuit

equation.
Slew rate is calculated using the
buffer circuit with the Analog
Discovery 2 function generator
outputting a 5V 10 kHz square wave.
Slew rate is the speed at which the
amplifier can change between voltages
measured in (V/s) [4]. Using the

Page 3 of 16
Analog Discovery 2s built in
oscilloscope and the Agilent
oscilloscope measurements using the
cursor option on both oscilloscopes can
easily display the voltage difference
verses time. Utilizing these equations
and designing the circuits properly a
detailed comparison of theoretical
calculations verses measured results
can be obtained. Also keeping in mind
the datasheet to notice intrinsic
parameter discrepancies to help
determine if measured values collate
with determined values [4].
Circuit Description
This report utilizing the LM741 IC
with the following pinout.

Figure 1 Pinout configuration of the

LM741 [3].
The offset null pins on the LM741
were not used during the operation of
each circuit. The breadboard was
initially setup with only the OP amp
and power supply connected. A 5V
micro USB cable powered the
PowerBRICK.

Figure 2 Schematic of power supply

setup.

Figure 3 Breadboard of OP amp rails

connected to the power-supply.
To better illustrate the breadboard
connections the free Fritzing program

Page 4 of 16
was utilized to make digital renders of
the configuration.

Figure 4 Fritzing capture of power rail

setup of the OP amp.
This general power-supply setup is
non-ideal because of how much the
load affects the voltage output at the
10k potentiometers, which control
the rail voltage. The setup however,
provides a very easy method of
controlling the rail voltage supply.
Measurements of the voltages rails
were taken with the portable digital
multi-meter (DMM) directly at the rail
pin. The buffer circuit was not so
much different from the original
circuit besides the addition of an extra
potentiometer to act as a third voltage
supply for Vin.

Figure 5 Voltage follower circuit

schematic.

Figure 6 Picture of breadboard used to

measure buffer circuit.

Page 5 of 16

Figure 7 Fritzing illustration of the

buffer circuit on breadboard.
In my schematic drawings if the
potentiometer only served as a
variable voltage supply it was
represented as just a voltage supply.
In addition, note in Multisim 2012 the
LM741 IC is represented upside down
compared to how most books describe
the OP amp. The buffer circuit seen in
Figure 7 is a simple circuit in terms of
calculations making this circuit very
easy to analyze once setup. The
inverting amplifier had a much
different configuration.

Figure 8 Inverting amplifier schematic

Figure 9 Breadboard picture of

inverting amplifier used to measure
the data.
Just to clarify the different
potentiometer was a spare sitting in
my electronic collection, also 10k
pot.

Figure 10 Fritzing illustration of

inverting amplifier.

Page 6 of 16
The inverting amplifier was initially
setup using 10k and 2k resistors.
After measuring the output using the
variable voltage supply provided by
the potentiometer on the breadboard,
the 10k resistor was replace with a
25k and the 2k was replaced with
the 10k resistor. Designing the
summing amplifier was similar to the
inverting amplifier however; multiple
voltage inputs and companion
resistors are included. Using all 20k
resistors to design the summing
amplifier made for easy calculations.
Attached to each resistor has a
potentiometer voltage sources from
the PowerBRICK that provides
variable voltage between 12V. At no
point within the testing procedure
required more than two different
voltages, so only two potentiometers
were needed for the making
calculations.

Figure 11 Summing amplifier

schematic.

Figure 12 Picture of summing

amplifier on breadboard.

Figure 13 Fritzing illustration of

summing amplifier.
The last new circuit tested was
the comparator. Utilizing the 5V Vin
terminal on the PowerBRICK two 5V
maximum potential 10k
potentiometers in series with a 10k
resistor were used as comparator

Page 7 of 16
reference voltages on the input pins.
The big change factor in this circuit
was a 10k load resistor on the
output.

Figure 16 Fritzing illustration of the

completed comparator design.
Figure 14 Comparator schematic using
the LM741.

The last portion of this lab required

measuring the slew rate of the LM741.
Using the Analog Discovery 2 function
generator output of a square wave on
the input terminal of the buffer circuit
described in Figure 5. Both the Agilent
oscilloscope and the Analog Discovery
2 oscilloscope were used to measure
the output and calculate the slew rate.

Figure 15 Comparator circuit on a

breadboard used for testing.

Figure 17 Slew rate measurement

setup of square wave.

Page 8 of 16
connected to the rails of the OP amp
were both calibrated to +6.25V and 6.25V and were continuously
monitored for change. With the
inverting terminal connected to the
output with no resistor, Vout should
behave as described in Equation 2
(2.2).

Using the cursor option on both

oscilloscopes, detailed calculations of
slew rate are obtained and compared
to the expected result.
Measurements
Using the LM741 datasheet, the
following electrical characteristics
were obtained.
PARAMETER MIN
Input Offset
Voltage, Vos (mV)
Input bias
current, IBIAS (nA)
Input offset
current, Ios (nA)
Differential Gain,
Av(d) (dB)
Common-mode
gain, Av(cm) (dB)
CMRR (dB)

TYP
1

MAX
5

80

500

20

200

86

96

94

106

80
95
Slew rate (V/s) 0.5
Table 2 Electrical characteristics of the
LM741 IC [3].
Using both the Analog
Discovery 2 (AD2) and the portable
digital multi-meter (PDMM)
calculations and measurements were
performed on the buffer circuit show
in Figure 6. Before measurement data
was collected the potentiometers

(2.2)

=
Vin
Volts
(V)

Vout
Calculated (v)

Measured (v)

2
2
1.98
-2
-2
-2.01
5
5
5
7
7
6.24
Table 3 Measurement and calculation
data of buffer circuit configuration
measured with PDMM.

Buffer Circuit Vout verses Vin

10
8

Voltage Out

Figure 18 Fritzing illustration of slew

measurement data.

-4

6
4

Caclulated

Measured

0
-2 -2 0
-4

10

Voltage In

Figure 19 Graph of Table 3 of voltage

output vs voltage input if values
continued to increase in the buffer
circuit.
As soon as the input voltage
surpassed the rail voltage, regardless
of Vin the output remained around
6.25V. Using a constant 3V source on
the voltage input pin of the buffer
circuit a decade box was added on the
output to ground to see how changing
load affects the voltage output of the
OP amp.

Page 9 of 16
Resistance () Vout (V)
100
3.01
500
3.00
1k
3.00
10k
2.99
100k
3.00
1M
3.00
Table 4 Voltage output of buffer
circuit, Vin = 3V with a decade box
connected to the output to ground.

Inverting amplifier (A) as:

() = 5
Equation 7 Voltage output of inverting
amplifier with a gain of 5V/V.
Using Equation 7 for the calculation
produces the following table.
Example calculation using Equation 7:
() = 5 = 5 (0.30) = 1.5

Voltage out (V)

Vout vs Load resistance

4
Vout (V)

3
2
1
0
0

200

400

600

800

1000

Decade box resistance (k)

Figure 20 Graph of the voltage output

with a varying load resistance on a
buffer circuit with a constant 3V on the
non-inverting input pin.
The Inverting amplifier seen in Figure
8 was designed in two different ways
in the first way using Rf = 10k and
Rin = 2k and following Equation 3,
the Vout of design (A) is as followed.
Use Equation 4 to obtain the gain of
the inverting amplifier design with the
following resistors.
() =

10
2

= 5

Substituting Gain (A) above into

Equation 3 using the identity in
Equation 4 leads to Vout of the

Vin (V)

Calculated Measured
(V)
(V)
0.20
-1
-0.99
-0.30
1.5
1.51
0.00
0
0
0.32
-1.6
-1.6
Table 5 Voltage output out inverting
amplifier with a gain of 5.
Using the same process as previously
described for design (A) to calculate
gain using Equation 4 and Vout using
Equation 3 design (B) was calculated
and measured using Rf = 25k and
Rin = 10k with gain:
25

() = 10 = 2.5

Modifying Equation 7 to fit the new

parameters creates Equation 8 for the
following table.
() = 2.5
Equation 8 Voltage output of inverting
amplifier with gain of 2.5.
Example calculation using Equation 8:
() = 2.5 = 2.5 (0.25)
= 0.624

Page 10 of 16

Vin (V)

Calculated Measured
(V)
(V)
0.30
-0.75
-0.75
-0.25
0.625
0.619
-0.20
0.5
0.470
0.40
-1
-0.980
Table 6 Voltage output of inverting
amplifier with a gain of 2.5.
Imposing both sets of data shows
interesting results.

Vout vs Vin comparison of design

(A) and (B)
Voltage input (V)

2
(A) Measured
A = -5.0095x + 0.0055
(B) Measured

1
0
-0.5

-1

-2

-3

Voltage output (V)

0.5

B = -2.4521x - 0.0056
Linear ((A)
Measured)

V1
(V)

Example calculation of the summing

amplifier using Equation 5:
= ((1) + (1) + (1)) = 3

V3
(V)

Calculated
(V)

Measured
(V)

1
1
1
-3
-3.05
-1
-1
1
1
1.02
-1
-1
2
0
0
3
-3
-3
3
2.6
-2
1
-2
3
2.8
Figure 22 Summing amplifier output
with equal resistors and three voltage
inputs.
The last configuration tested was the
comparator circuit. Notice in Equation
6 the calculation is dependent on the
relationship of voltage on the noninverting pin to the inverting pin.
Using the piecewise function to gather
the calculated data the following chart
was produced.
Example calculation using Equation 6:

Linear ((B)
Measured)

Figure 21 Graphical comparison of

voltage output of design (A) and (B)
with linear best-fit line slope.
After measurements of both the
inverting amplifiers were taken, a
summing amplifier was designed
using only 20k resistors. As proved
in Equation 5 when designing a
summing amplifier with equal
resistors the voltage output is the
negative addition of all the voltages on
the input.

V2
(V)

5,
= { 5,
0 ,

1>4
1 < 4 = 5
1=4

VV+
Calculated Measured
(V)
(V)
(V)
(V)
4
1
-5
-5
2
3
5
5
1
0
-5
-5
4
4
0
0
0
1
5
5
3
2
-5
-5
Table 7 Comparator circuit voltage
output.
The last section of this lab was to
rebuild the buffer circuit and use the
Analog Discovery 2 to output a 5Vpp
10 kHz square wave to the noninverting input terminal using both
the Agilent and AD2 oscilloscope for
measuring.

Page 11 of 16
Discussion

Figure 23 Screen shot of the Agilent

oscilloscope measuring slew rate of the
LM741 OP amp with a 5Vpp square
wave on the non-inverting terminal of
a buffer circuit.

Figure 24 Screen shot of the AD2

oscilloscope measuring the slew rate of
the LM731 OP amp with a 5Vpp
square wave on the non-inverting
terminal of a buffer circuit.
Using the information from the
following screen shots produces data
for calculating the slew rate. The slew
rate is measured by inspecting the
time it takes for the voltage to go from
one voltage to the next.
Datasheet Agilent
(V/s)
(V/s)

AD2
(V/s)

0.5

(5.1/6.5) = 0.78

(5/6.360) = 0.79

Table 8 Slew rate measurements using

the data from the oscilloscopes [3].

At first glance, the datasheets

seemed very daunting; thankfully, a
datasheet guide was included with a
description of each of the electrical
characteristics a typical OP amp
would feature [4]. Mostly confusingly,
Texas Instruments combines the
datasheet of similar LM741s such as
the LM741A and LM741C all into one
documents so careful inspection of the
IC specified needs to be considered.
Upon realizing only one table is
needed for describing the electrical
characteristics for the LM741, things
became much more manageable. As
we can see in Table 2 the LM741
matches well to the ideal OP amp,
which is preferred. With a typical
voltage offset of 1mV and a typical
input offset current of 20nA this IC
performs well with only minor
variation [3].
One of the biggest drawbacks of the
PowerBRICK power supply as shown
in Figure 4 is using 10k
potentiometers as the method to vary
the voltage due to frequently changing
loads affecting the voltage output at
the potentiometer. In addition, the
small size of the potentiometer made
so the accuracy of the voltage used
was not always great, whenever
possible I made use of the 5V power
supply from the AD2 for the voltage
input source. For the buffer circuit
this wasnt entirely doable because it
required more than 5V to operator in
which case I used another
potentiometer power supply. As

Page 12 of 16
expected once the voltage at the input
terminal became greater than rail
voltage provided to the OP amp the
output voltage saturates to the rail
voltage shown in the graph in Figure
19. You would expect the voltage to
continue to follow the calculated data,
and in the ideal case this would be
true up to the absolute maximum
value provided in the data sheet,
however we are constantly limited by
rail voltage and maximum limits.
The inverting amplifier was very
similar to the calculated data in both
designs. As presented in Table 5 and
Table 6 the calculations had an
average error of only 1.16%, which is
within reason given the non-ideal
situation. More interestingly when
plotting both sets of data in Figure 21
and using Microsoft Word to calculate
the linear trend line insight of the
slope of the data shows the slope
corresponds perfectly with the gain
factor computed in Equation 7 and
Equation 8. Similar to the
configuration of the inverting
amplifier was the summing amplifier
as shown in Figure 12. The addition of
the extra voltage sources and equal
resistors made for interesting
calculations. As proved in Equation 5
with equal resistors throughout the
circuit and the non-inverting pin set to
ground the summing amplifier outputs
the negative summation of the input
voltages. The calculated data was very
close to the measured data with an
average error of around 3.27%,
presumably the potentiometer power

supply described earlier most likely

played a large roll in discrepancy.
The comparator was the only
circuit without a feedback current
affecting the output. This causes the
OP amp to amplify to its maximum
gain and saturates to 5V with the
given OP amp and configuration.
Because the main operation of this
circuit is to compare the voltages at
the input terminal, Equation 6 is a
simple piecewise function. The
function hit the maximum positive
saturation when non-inverting
terminal is larger than the inverting
terminal and hits the minimum
saturation point when the inverting
pin has a larger voltage than the noninverting pin, when the input pins
were equal the voltage was 0. This
process shown in Table 7 shows the
output of the comparator was perfectly
calculated and measured. The last
part of the exploration of the LM741
was diving into measuring the slew
rate of the OP amp with a 5Vpp 10k
Hz square wave generated by the
AD2. Using both the AD2 and Agilent
oscilloscope measurements were
displayed in Figure 23 and Figure 24
and calculations were placed in Table
8. The slew rate measurement had the
largest discrepancy due to manual
selection of the rise time interval but
was within reason.
=
2 =

(0.79 0.5)
100 = 36.71%
0.79

(0.78 0.5)
100 = 35.90%
0.78

Page 13 of 16
Conclusion
The LM741 OP amp proved to be one
reliable and useful IC. The equations
generated for the voltage output of the
various configurations were shown to
exhibit similar results to the
measured values of all the OP amp
setups. The buffer circuit operated as
expected regardless of the discrepancy
in calculations of the 7V input voltage,
because of the non-ideal situation and
having to account for the maximum
rail voltage supplied to the OP amp.
Both inverting amplifier designs
behaved exactly as expected with very
low error as calculated above in the
discussion. The datasheet providing
the electrical characteristics shows the
LM741 only had a typical offset
voltage of 1mV so it makes sense the
data would show very little variation
within limitations. The summing
amplifier was accurately outputting
the negative summation of input
voltages, which is useful in many
different applications. The comparator
circuit was the only perplexing circuit
until learning the saturation voltage
was an intrinsic parameter of the
LM741 dependent on the rail voltage,
once realized the calculations became
a single condition statement [3]. The
slew rate was slightly off however
small change in the cursor placement
resulted in large change in the s
scale of the oscilloscope. This is most
likely the main reason in large error, if
the cursors were moved just a bit more
towards the top edge of the rising
pulse that would of dramatically
lowered the error, however I choose to

record the initial slew rate

measurement for it look more correctly
placed. As an extra learning exercise, I
purchased several LM324 quad OP
amps to experiment with making a
power supply with the PowerBRICK.
My power supply features an organic
light emitting diode (OLED) display
that is powered by an ATMEGA382PU
Arduino IC to display the voltage at
the potentiometer. The Arduino IC
features analog voltage reading
capability from 0 to 5V so to measure
the varying 12V required two things,
one was reversing the -12V to positive
voltage and the other was designing a
voltage divider to provide a voltage
output of 5V at Vin = 12V. The voltage
divider worked perfectly for converting
the positive 12V to 5V using large
resistors greater than 3M made so
the divider didnt affect the voltage
output much. However, when
converting the -12V to positive 12V
using a gain of one inverting amplifier
the output was limited to only 10.84V
and this was tested repeatedly with
different quad OP amps all with the
same results. I found the voltage
swing on different OP amps limits the
positive or negative voltage way before
reaching the rail voltage called the
swing voltage, however did not affect
the negative voltage. I wanted to use
the quad OP amp invert the voltage
and eliminate load resistance effecting
the voltage output of the supply
configuration. Now that this lab is
concluded, I can utilize the LM741 to
reach the positive rail voltage to
convert the negative voltage

Page 14 of 16
accurately and finish my amateur
power supply.
Lab Questions
1) The LM741C is identical to the LM741/LM741A except that the LM741C
has their performance _____ ?
The LM741C is identical to the LM741 and LM741A or
Differentiators except that the LM741C has their performance
ensured over a 0C to +70C temperature range, instead of 55C to
+125C [3].
2) A/n ___________ (analog, digital) signal can vary at any value between the
low and high voltage range supplied by the power supply.
Analog

3) A _____________ (linear, digital) circuit produces signals that are analog.

linear

4) When the voltage applied to the non-inverting terminal of an op-amp

comparator is _________ (less, greater) than the voltage at the inverting
input, the output will be driven into positive saturation.
Greater

5) If 2 V is applied to an inverting op-amp that has an input resistance of 2

k ohm and a feedback resistance of 5 k ohm, the voltage at the output is
__________ volts, and the polarity is _____ (+,-).
-(5k/2k)*(-2) = (-2.5)*(-2) = 5V, +

6) The summing op-amp has the following applied to the inputs: +2 V, +3 V,

and 1 V What is the output voltage?
-((+2)+(+3)+(-1)) = -(4) = -4V

 References
[1] Digilent, "Digilent Inc," 26 February 2015. [Online]. Available:
https://reference.digilentinc.com/_media/powerbricks/powerbrick_rm.pdf.
[Accessed 17 October 2016].
[2] Texas Instruments, "LM741_Texas_Instruments.pdf," May 2015. [Online].
Available: https://uml.umassonline.net/bbcswebdav/pid-615307-dt-content-rid2826253_1/courses/EECE.3110.MW1.FA16/03_Bowden_Library/Misc_Data_Sh
eets/lm741_Texas_Instruments.pdf. [Accessed 21 October 2016].
[3] J. Karki, "Understanding Operational Amplifiers Specifications," Texas
Instruments Incorporated, 1998.
[4] Digilent Inc, "Digilent," Digilent, 2015. [Online]. Available:
https://reference.digilentinc.com/reference/instrumentation/analog-discovery2/start?redirect=1. [Accessed 9 October 2016].