This is because the junction of the input and feedback signal ( X ) is at the same potential as the positive ( + ) input which is at zero volts or ground then, the junction is a “Virtual Earth”. However, in real world op-amp circuits both of these rules are slightly broken. When dealing with operational amplifiers there are two very important rules to remember about inverting amplifiers, these are: “No current flows into the input terminal” and that “V1 always equals V2”. In this Inverting Amplifier circuit the operational amplifier is connected with feedback to produce a closed loop operation. Inverting Operational Amplifier Configuration In other words, the op-amp becomes a “differential amplifier”. We must therefore separate the real input signal from the inverting input by using an Input Resistor, Rin.Īs we are not using the positive non-inverting input this is connected to a common ground or zero voltage terminal as shown below, but the effect of this closed loop feedback circuit results in the voltage potential at the inverting input being equal to that at the non-inverting input producing a Virtual Earth summing point because it will be at the same potential as the grounded reference input.
This negative feedback results in the inverting input terminal having a different signal on it than the actual input voltage as it will be the sum of the input voltage plus the negative feedback voltage giving it the label or term of a Summing Point. Then a closed-loop inverting amplifier uses negative feedback to accurately control the overall gain of the amplifier, but at a cost in the reduction of the amplifiers gain. This effect produces a closed loop circuit to the amplifier resulting in the gain of the amplifier now being called its Closed-loop Gain. This feedback connection between the output and the inverting input terminal forces the differential input voltage towards zero. Negative Feedback is the process of “feeding back” a fraction of the output signal back to the input, but to make the feedback negative, we must feed it back to the negative or “inverting input” terminal of the op-amp using an external Feedback Resistor called Rƒ. This then produces and effect known commonly as Negative Feedback, and thus produces a very stable Operational Amplifier based system. However, this very high gain is of no real use to us as it makes the amplifier both unstable and hard to control as the smallest of input signals, just a few micro-volts, (μV) would be enough to cause the output voltage to saturate and swing towards one or the other of the voltage supply rails losing complete control of the output.Īs the open loop DC gain of an operational amplifier is extremely high we can therefore afford to lose some of this high gain by connecting a suitable resistor across the amplifier from the output terminal back to the inverting input terminal to both reduce and control the overall gain of the amplifier.
We saw in the last tutorial that the Open Loop Gain, ( A VO ) of an operational amplifier can be very high, as much as 1,000,000 (120dB) or more.