Touchstone Semi sent a demo board for the record-breaking, low power, low voltage TS1001 op-amp. We covered their design competition earlier.
The demo board has a complete support circuit so the parts are ready to evaluate. It’s populated with two TS1001 op-amps, in inverting and non-inverting configurations.
Attention component manufacturers: this is how to sample the latest tiny components. This little demo board is ready to connect to a test circuit. The op-amp is an SOT-23-5 SC-70 package, which anyone can hand solder with a little practice, but it is a killer way to evaluate new lead-less parts (*cough* Maxim, TI).
We’ll hook it up to the Dangerous DSO and a lab oscilloscope for a demo soon. You can also sample their op-amps, and read more about Touchstone in EETimes.
I guess we’re getting so good at soldering SMD that we mistook the SC70 part for a larger SOT-23-5 part. My bad, I regret the error.
Got mine for free as I ordered it thorugh my company website. As for the part, 0.85V@5uA is pretty impressive. NOw time to come up with something interesting to enter it in to the competition.
ultrasounder
thats a nice part, for sure, but have you seen the TI TLV2401?
http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tlv2401.html
its rail to rail, has more GBWP, runs at up to 16V single supply, and has just a smidge more current consumption. worth it for the flexibility IMO.
some samples are on the way.
does anyone have good ideas for entries in their competition?
I had a bunch of ideas, from a solar engine driver to an ultra-low-power 555-esque circuit.
I don’t have time to get it done before the contest is over, though, since I’m planning to move soon, so those ideas are up for grabs.
What were you thinking of doing?
I think the competition deadline is up, not sure though, but I thought I saw the deadline was in June.
@ian and all, i got it confirmed with the marketing person @ touchstone semi that
the deadline for the competition is the 29th of July. So, it is still not late to enter.
Ananth
@SQKYbeaver,
Loking at the datasheet, the key AC specs of GBW,Slew Rate, and Input referred noise reveal a very lousy, CMOS input-output opamp which is not speced for anything beyond audio. The GBW is 4KHz which means that the max frequency this thing can reliably amplify without clipping/distortion is right around 2KHz. This was my gripe when I had a phone chat with the marketing guy also running this competition. Having said, that this narrows your choice of possible applications. Things that come to mind are any audio circuit, sallen-key active filter,distortion units,clipping circuits or even envelope detectors. What about a nW, oscillator for an arp. This thing can drive rail-rail at 0.85V@0.5UA. They also talk about sensor interfaces(think very slow signals). Just my 2Cents.
Cheers,
Ananth
Thanks, that’s really interesting. Can you share a little more? Could I convince you to write a post about it?
Ian,
I have PMed you via the DP forum. Lets take this offline!
Thanks
Ananth
there are many useful analog circuits that don’t need to be much faster than dc. these are probably going used with micros that can run from the same voltages, i have only briefly looked at the data sheet.
TI offers evaluation boards for opamps as well. These are unpopulated PCBs, you can choose between inverting and noninverting configuration and between different package types.
The boards can be found by searching for “dem-opa” on TI’s website.
http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/dem-opa-so-1b.html
You can get them for free in TI’s eStore.
Hint: you can even use them for non-TI products :)
Regards,
Jan
it looks like is 5U$S for each board now
https://estore.ti.com/Search.aspx?k=DEM-OPA-SO-1B