National Semiconductor Corporation announced the LMC2001, the first of a new class of operational amplifiers guaranteeing very high precision over time and temperature over ten years. The LMC2001 is optimized for performance in strain gauges, weight scales, test and instrumentation equipment and climate control systems where precision, low power, and small size are critical.

Today's designers are challenged to increase precision, reduce noise, lower power consumption, save board space and minimize system cost. The LMC2001 addresses these challenges. To increase precision, National's LMC2001 offers precision-over-time technology that ensures 5mV offset error drift over ten years plus the elimination of 1/f noise as a source of signal error. As a result, the LMC2001 offers an ultra-low offset voltage that is entirely stable over time and temperature. The LMC2001 is manufactured on a state-of-the-art submicron BiCMOS process providing a reduction of die size and product cost. The device is the only low cost, high accuracy op amp in a SOT23-5 package.

"Signal accuracy becomes even more critical when op amps are used in low-voltage systems," noted Suneil Parulekar, marketing director for National's amplifier product line. "Digital engineers, often uneasy about the analog side, will welcome National's LMC2001 because it eliminates design complications such as offset error, drift, and 1/f noise. In addition, this op amp can be dropped into existing systems without any modifications.

By definition, 1/f noise increases in amplitude as frequency is reduced. In most applications, this varying signal noise is added or subtracted from the signal to be measured, with a corresponding increase in error. However, 1/f noise error is eliminated in the LMC2001. Additionally, since the voltage and current noise level is low and constant with frequency, accuracy in all DC-coupled applications is greatly improved.

Key Features and Benefits
The LMC2001 offers an unparalleled array of key features and benefits:

Given the new developments that have ocurred in the venerable op.amp. in the last eighteen months it may come as a surprise to readers to see yet one more hit the streets. Although National has been quietly talking about this technology for over a year it has not quite arrived in the form that was expected, and that is often the case: And the higher the initial hype the more pragmatic I can get. But National now has a characterized product and I am confused. And I think that National is a little confused too. This is being billed as a "precision" op. amp., a market that is dominated by 30-V devices today. It is also a market that I have not see any signs of shrinking; there may be new business coming at the lower supply voltages but the older, safer, ways of guaranteeing precision are still done at higher voltages, way above noise floors.

In particular, the guaranteed input offset voltage of 40 ýV (the html version of the press release has a typo with mV) and the 5 ýV/10 years drift (not 5 mV as in press release) are incredible numbers. The absolute number is not the lowest, that distinction being held by a Linear Technology product I believe, but it is considerably better than most and it is the only product with a drift guarantee. So, you could put this product in a test instrument and be sure that the input drift was going to remain in spec? Maybe, but there is nobody that I know who is responsible for calibration of test equipment who is going to believe it for the whole instrument so it is going to be calibrated anyway.

So why is this product in my Editor's Choice. I think it will actually sell -- at the premium being asked for it, and therefore profitably -- but not to the audience that National expect. What will propel this product, certainly when it is available as a dual (and I presume that is planned) is the lack of 1/f noise. Not low 1/f noise; there is none exhibited through a clever modulation cancellation technique. The part's other numbers, like PSRR and power consumption, will allow for some completely new designs of high-gain close-to-dc designs which are predictable and require no compensation techniques, particularly where lower speed chopper amps are being used (and avoided) today. A completely different set of applications to those being focused on by the company.