Second generation current conveyors can be employed in a very large number of different applications. Owing to its flexibility and versatility, CCII can be seen as a real competitor for the operational amplifier. In fact, in several applications, current conveyors allow to obtain better results than op-amp ones, but CCII can replace op-amp only when it is proved that all the signal processing functions, usually implemented with op-amps, can be performed with similar or better characteristics through the use of CCIIs. That's why in the following sections a number of simple applications with CCIIs will be investigated and, in some cases, compared to the related op-amp-based ones. In this sense, there are two different approaches. The first approach utilises them as substituting blocks of the op-amps, while the second one proposes a different design philosophy, named current-mode, and introduces CCII itself as the basic building block in this new environment.

5.1 BASIC APPLICATIONS

In the first chapter, where the general feedback theory has been presented, it has been shown that the best basic block which implements a voltage amplifier is the VCVS (Voltage Controlled Voltage Source) ^[1], ^[2]. The analysis of the basic applications will start with the comparison between op-amp-based and CCII-based voltage amplifiers.

In figure 5.1 a traditional op-amp-based voltage amplifier is pictured. Assuming the op-amp as ideal in particular, considering infinite gain at each operating frequency and infinite input impedance the relation between input and output voltages is expressed by the following equation:

Considering a,...