ROHM develops one of the industry's smallest CMOS op amp

It is optimised for amplifying signals from sensors such as temperature, pressure, flow rate, used in smartphones, small IoT devices, and similar applications.

The size of smartphones and IoT devices continues to decrease - requiring smaller components. To accurately amplify small signals as needed in high-precision sensing, op amps must improve low input offset voltage and noise performance while continuing to shrink the form factor.

The TLR377GYZ succeeds in balancing miniaturisation with high accuracy (which has been difficult to achieve with conventional op amps) by further evolving proprietary circuit design, process, and packaging technologies cultivated over many years.

Op amps’ input offset voltage and noise generation degrade amplification accuracy and can be suppressed by increasing the size of the built-in transistors - but at the expense of miniaturisation. In response, ROHM developed proprietary circuits which achieve a maximum offset voltage as low as 1mV without increasing the size of the transistors. In addition, proprietary process technology greatly reduces flicker noise, while ultra-low noise is achieved with an input equivalent noise voltage density of 12nV/√Hz by optimising the resistive components at the element level. Furthermore, the new product adopts a WLCSP (Wafer Level Chip Scale Package) with a ball pitch of just 0.3mm utilising original packaging technology. This reduces size by approximately 69% compared to conventional products and 46% over existing compact products.

The IC-mounted conversion board that can replace SSOP6 packages is also offered to support replacement considerations and initial evaluation. Both the new product and conversion board are available for purchase through online distributors. In addition, the high-accuracy SPICE model – called ROHM Real Model – is available on ROHM’s website for verification simulations.

Going forward, in addition to greater miniaturisation and accuracy, ROHM will continue to improve op amp performance by reducing power consumption further utilising proprietary ultra-low current consumption technology.