Transient Power Consumption in Signal Amplifiers with Switched Supply Voltages

This paper studies the transient response of the power supply input of single-supply operational amplifiers (op amps) when their supply voltage is turned on and off. A first-order model is proposed to describe the op amp behavior and a method to experimentally evaluate the involved parameters is described. The results obtained for a sample of distinct op amps are presented and the implications of these results in the energy budget of autonomous systems are discussed. In particular, power supply decoupling capacitors turn out to be major energy users, so their convenience in autonomous systems should be assessed