TI buffer amplifier increases signal bandwidth tenfold in data-acquisition systems

Texas Instruments introduced the industry’s widest-bandwidth high-input-impedance (Hi-Z) buffer amplifier, capable of supporting frequency bandwidths as high as 3 GHz. The wider bandwidth and high slew rates of the BUF802 enable higher signal throughput and minimal input settling time. Designers can leverage this faster throughput to measure higher-frequency signals more accurately in test and measurement applications including oscilloscopes, active probes and high-frequency data-acquisition systems.

The bandwidth achieved by the BUF802 was previously only possible by using application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that can increase system design time, complexity and cost. By eliminating ASICs, designers who use TI’s buffer can get to market faster while achieving a wide dynamic range at a fraction of the cost.

Previous alternatives to ASIC-based design implementations required dozens of discrete components such as field-effect transistors (FETs), protection diodes and transistors. These discrete, FET-input amplifier-based implementations add to a design’s bill-of-materials (BOM) cost and system complexity and are unable to deliver the same bandwidth as ASICs, thus limiting the signal throughput of data-acquisition applications. The BUF802 provides a single-chip alternative to ASICs or FET-input amplifier-based implementations by integrating the features of discrete components while providing 10 times wider bandwidth than FET-input amplifiers, matching the performance of custom ASICs (more info).