New Buffer Amplifier from Texas Instruments Increases Signal Bandwidth Tenfold in Data Acquisition Systems

     Texas Instruments has introduced the BUF802 High Input Impedance (Hi-Z) Buffer Amplifier with the industry's widest bandwidth, capable of supporting frequency bandwidths up to 3GHz. The BUF802 has wider bandwidth and high slew rate, enabling higher signal throughput and minimizing input settling time. Designers can take advantage of this faster throughput to more accurately measure higher frequency signals in test and measurement applications such as oscilloscopes, active probes, and high-frequency data acquisition systems.

     Previously, the bandwidth provided by the BUF802 could only be achieved through application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), which increased system design time, complexity, and cost. With the BUF802 now ASIC-free, designers can use TI's buffers to accelerate time-to-market while achieving a wide dynamic range at a lower cost.

     Leveraging the industry's widest bandwidth to achieve ASIC-level performance, previous alternatives to ASIC-based designs required dozens of discrete components such as field-effect transistors (FETs), protection diodes, and transistors. These discrete solutions based on FET input amplifiers increase the design's bill of materials (BOM) cost and system complexity, and cannot provide the same bandwidth as ASICs, limiting signal throughput for data acquisition applications.

     The BUF802 integrates the characteristics of discrete components while providing 10 times wider bandwidth than FET input amplifiers, matching the performance of custom ASICs, providing a single-chip alternative to ASIC or FET input amplifier based designs.

     Extending front-end designs from 100MHz to 3GHz using the same BOM, the flexible BUF802 is an industry-leading buffer amplifier capable of adjusting quiescent current to meet various bandwidth and signal swing requirements, such as at 1V peak-to-peak (VPP) 100MHz to 3GHz, up to 2GHz at 2V peak-to-peak. With this wide adjustment range of bandwidth and signal swing, designers can easily scale their front-end designs across multiple data acquisition applications, reducing system cost and ease of redesign.

     Reduce design complexity with an integrated functional mode that allows engineers to use the BUF802 as a stand-alone buffer, or in a composite loop with precision amplifiers such as the OPA140. As a stand-alone buffer, the BUF802 facilitates high input impedance and high slew rate in applications that can tolerate 100mV offset voltage or signal chain AC coupling. In the composite loop, a new buffer enables high DC accuracy and 3GHz bandwidth in applications requiring a 1µV/°C maximum temperature drift.

     Module Evaluation of BUF802 and BUF802RGTEVM in 3mm x 3mm, 16-Pin Very Thin Quad Flat No-Lead (VQFN) Package