A voltage follower may be balanced by the technique shown

in Figure 4.R

drop across R

the adjustment resistors causes a gain error, increasing the

gain by 0.05%. This small error usually causes no problem.

The adjustment circuit essentially causes the offset voltage

to appear at full output, rather than at low output levels,

where it is a large percentage error.

Differential amplifiers are somewhat more difficult to bal-

ance. The offset adjustment used for a differential amplifier

can degrade the common mode rejection ratio. Figure 5

shows an adjustment circuit which has minimal effect on the

common mode rejection. The voltage at the arm of the pot is

divided by R

mV. R

rejection ratio is limited by the amplifer for values of R

3

greater than 1 k

Ω.IfR

R

The techniques described for balancing offset voltage at the

input of the amplifier offer two main advantages: First, they

are universally applicable to all operational amplifiers and

allow device interchangeability with no modifications to the

balance circuitry. Second, they permit balancing without in-

terfering with the internal circuitry of the amplifier. The elec-

trical parameters of the amplifiers are tested and guaranteed

without balancing. Although it doesn’t usually happen, bal-

ancing could degrade performance.

00846003

FIGURE 3. Offset Voltage Adjustment for

Non-Inverting Amplifiers

00846004

FIGURE 4. Offset Voltage Adjustment for

Voltage Followers

00846005

FIGURE 5. Offset Voltage Adjustment for

Differential Amplifiers

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