LMV2011

SNOSA32C – AUGUST 2003 – REVISED MARCH 2013

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APPLICATION INFORMATION

THE BENEFITS OF LMV2011 NO 1/f NOISE

Using patented methods, the LMV2011 eliminates the 1/f noise present in other amplifiers. That noise, which

increases as frequency decreases, is a major source of measurement error in all DC-coupled measurements.

Low-frequency noise appears as a constantly-changing signal in series with any measurement being made. As a

result, even when the measurement is made rapidly, this constantly-changing noise signal will corrupt the result.

The value of this noise signal can be surprisingly large. For example: If a conventional amplifier has a flat-band

noise level of 10nV/

√Hz and a noise corner of 10Hz, the RMS noise at 0.001Hz is 1µV/√Hz. This is equivalent to

a 0.50µV peak-to-peak error, in the frequency range 0.001 Hz to 1.0 Hz. In a circuit with a gain of 1000, this

produces a 0.50mV peak-to-peak output error. This number of 0.001 Hz might appear unreasonably low, but

when a data acquisition system is operating for 17 minutes, it has been on long enough to include this error. In

this same time, the LMV2011 will only have a 0.21mV output error. This is smaller by 2.4 x. Keep in mind that

this 1/f error gets even larger at lower frequencies. At the extreme, many people try to reduce this error by

integrating or taking several samples of the same signal. This is also doomed to failure because the 1/f nature of

this noise means that taking longer samples just moves the measurement into lower frequencies where the noise

level is even higher.

The LMV2011 eliminates this source of error. The noise level is constant with frequency so that reducing the

bandwidth reduces the errors caused by noise.

Another source of error that is rarely mentioned is the error voltage caused by the inadvertent thermocouples

created when the common "Kovar type" IC package lead materials are soldered to a copper printed circuit board.

These steel-based leadframe materials can produce over 35

μV/°C when soldered onto a copper trace. This can

result in thermocouple noise that is equal to the LMV2011 noise when there is a temperature difference of only

0.0014°C between the lead and the board!

For this reason, the lead-frame of the LMV2011 is made of copper. This results in equal and opposite junctions

which cancel this effect. The extremely small size of the SOT-23 package results in the leads being very close

together. This further reduces the probability of temperature differences and hence decreases thermal noise.

OVERLOAD RECOVERY

The LMV2011 recovers from input overload much faster than most chopper-stabilized opamps. Recovery from

driving the amplifier to 2X the full scale output, only requires about 40ms. Many chopper-stabilized amplifiers will

take from 250ms to several seconds to recover from this same overload. This is because large capacitors are

used to store the unadjusted offset voltage.

Figure 30. Overload Recovery Test

The wide bandwidth of the LMV2011 enhances performance when it is used as an amplifier to drive loads that

inject transients back into the output. ADCs (Analog-to-Digital Converters) and multiplexers are examples of this

type of load. To simulate this type of load, a pulse generator producing a 1V peak square wave was connected

to the output through a 10pF capacitor (Figure 30). The typical time for the output to recover to 1% of the applied

pulse is 80ns. To recover to 0.1% requires 860ns. This rapid recovery is due to the wide bandwidth of the output

stage and large total GBW.

NO EXTERNAL CAPACITORS REQUIRED

The LMV2011 does not need external capacitors. This eliminates the problems caused by capacitor leakage and

dielectric absorption, which can cause delays of several seconds from turn-on until the amplifier's error has

settled.

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