Burr-Brown Corporation announced the OPA353 (single), OPA2353 (dual), and OPA4353 (quad), a family of low cost, high speed operational amplifiers featuring rail-to-rail input/output, excellent ac characteristics, and very low noise.

The OPA353 series meets the demand for smaller packages, low voltage operation, and rail-to-rail input/output. Applications for the OPA353 series include driving sampling analog-to-digital converters, communications (cell phones), video processing, audio applications, and providing I/V conversion at the output of digital-to-analog converters.

"Customers will be unable to find an op amp with the same combination of features and overall level of performance at such a low cost," said Howard Skolnik, strategic marketing engineer at Burr-Brown.

The performance of these amplifiers is extremely respectable with a decent 44-MHz bandwidth, a high slew rate at 22 V/ýs and a good performance to the rail -- which itself can be extremely low at 2.5 V. But the clinchers here are the packages and prices. I also do like the input common-mode voltage and the input noise performance. The value for money is probably the highest out there at the moment, and these parts will do well. The trick for the manufacturer, of course, is in getting the die size so small that many, many more parts can be produced from a single wafer.