Wherever possible the overall technique used for this series will be "definition by example" with
generic formulae included for use in other applications. To make stability analysis easy we will use
more than one tool from our toolbox with data sheet information, tricks, rules-of-thumb, SPICE
Simulation, and real-world testing all accelerating our design of stable operational amplifier (op amp)
circuits. These tools are specifically targeted at voltage feedback op amps with unity-gain bandwidths
<20 MHz, although many of the techniques are applicable to any voltage feedback op amp. 20 MHz is
chosen because as we increase to higher bandwidth circuits there are other major factors in closing the
loop: such as parasitic capacitances on PCBs, parasitic inductances in capacitors, parasitic inductances
and capacitances in resistors, etc. Most of the rules-of-thumb and techniques were developed not just
from theory but from the actual building of real-world circuits with op amps <20 MHz.
