OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIERS: BASIC CONCEPTS and COOKBOOK

Understanding Operational Amplifiers (OA) is an important “brain-tool” in a growing number of scientific studies. However the student frequently feels the first approach to OA as a shock. Several textbooks in fact require a great effort before the benefit/cost ratio becomes favorable, e.g. starting with a discouraging introduction on transistors. The transistor is the basic element in OA, but learning its working principle is not necessary for learning OA. In the modern analog electronic circuits, on the other hand, the basic building block is now the OA, not the transistor. Therefore here we start describing the AO and its most important applications, leaving a simplified description of diodes and transistors behavior in an optional Appendix. The goal of this book is to help the novice to acquire familiarity with the essential elements of analog electronics, making possible the understanding of many practical circuits.