Low temperature performance of operational amplifiers for space applications

Since 1994, following the Perry COTS Initiative, there is need to understand, characterize and qualify commercially off the shelf (COTS) electronic components, like operational amplifiers, at extremely low temperatures such as that encountered in space. In this paper we study and characterize the low temperature performance of a number of different types of operational amplifiers for space applications. The degradation parameters are studied at the following temperatures: 70 /spl deg/C, 25 /spl deg/C, 0 /spl deg/C, -60 /spl deg/C, -120 /spl deg/C. The key performance characteristics studied are the gain-bandwidth, noise voltage and offset voltage. Operational amplifiers based on CMOS, Bipolar and BiCMOS technologies are studied. The differences in the degradation behaviour are discussed.