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Is there a general purpose op amp that is the modern equivalent of the 741? Something with a much more recent design with widespread use.


I doubt there is anything recent as iconic. Overall I think we have moved way beyond having individual generic iconic models at all. Digikey has like thousands (hundreds if you are old-fashioned and want through-hole) of different opamps which probably are mostly interchangeable 741 for most purposes, just pick any one of them.


Also, there ARE objectively shit op amps that are old and crusty that pretty much nobody uses. I think it was the LM358 that basically had a broken output stage (class-B) that causes horrible output crossover distortion when you transition from sourcing to sinking current or vice versa.

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm158-n.pdf

Page 13, Figure 16.

Q12 is a common emitter amplifier with an active load, that feeds directly into a class B output stage (pullup is a darlington with Q5 and Q6, and pulldown is Q13, with Q7 being a current limiter). I've never used this personally (for good reason) but I remember my mentors telling me this causes horrible CO distortion.


What's wrong with the 741?

The 071 is also "jellybean" enough; both are still currently used in modern designs because how dirt cheap they are.

But they are "high voltage", non rail-to-rail anything, so people tend to use more modern options for new designs.


741 problems: terrible bias current, offset, input range, output range, power consumption, voltage requirements, GBW, noise.

They’re just horrid. Fine for noddy stuff like power supplies and PID loops etc though.


I don't have any particular problem with it. I majored in EE about 15 years ago, and haven't really looked at op amps since studying the 741. Just curious what's popular these days.




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