Peak Detectors Gain in Speed and Performance Design Note 61

John Wright
Introduction
Fast peak detectors place unusual demands on ampliers. High slew rate is needed to keep the amplier
internal nodes from overracing the output stage. This
condition causes either a long overload, or DC accuracy
errors. To support the high slew rate at the output, the
amplier must deliver large currents into the capacitive
load of the detector. Compounding these problems are
issues of amplier instability with a large capacitive
load, as well as the accuracy of the output voltage.
Detecting Sinewaves
The LT1190 is the ideal candidate for this application,
with a high 400V/s slew rate, large 50mA output
current, and a wide 70 degree phase margin. The
closed-loop peak detector circuit of Figure 1 uses a
Schottky diode inside the feedback loop to obtain good
accuracy. The 20 resistor RO isolates the 0.01F load
and prevents oscillation. The DC error with a sine wave
input is plotted in Figure 2 for various input amplitudes.
The DC value is read with a DVM. At low frequency, the
error is small and dominated by decay of the detector
capacitor between cycles. As frequency rises the error
increases because capacitor charging time decreases.
During this time the overdrive becomes a very small
portion of a sine wave cycle. Finally at approximately
4MHz the error rises rapidly due to the slew rate limitation of the op amp. For comparison purposes the error
of an LM118 is also plotted for VIN = 2VP-P.

50

DC DETECTOR ERROR (%)

LM118
VIN = 2VP-P
40
SLEW RATE
LIMIT
30
LT1190
VIN = 2VP-P

20

10
VIN = 4VP-P
VIN = 6VP-P
0
10k

100k
1M
FREQUENCY (Hz)

Figure 2. Closed-Loop Peak Detector Error vs Frequency

A fast Schottky diode peak detector can be built with

a 1000pF capacitor, and 10k pull down. Although this
simple circuit is very fast, it has limited usefulness due
to the error of the diode threshold, and its low input
impedance. The accuracy of this simple circuit can be
improved with the LT1190 circuit of Figure 3. In this
open-loop design, the detector diode is D1, and a level
shifting or compensating diode is D2. A load resistor
RL is connected to 5V, and an identical bias resistor
RB is used to bias the compensating diode. Equal value
resistors ensure that the diode drops are equal. Low
values of RL and RB (1k to 10k) provide fast response,
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5V

5V
3

VIN

RS
50

7
LT1190

10M

1N5712
6

RO
20

VODC
CL
0.01F

VIN

RS
2
50

LT1190

Figure 1. Closed-Loop Peak Detector

4
5V

5V

RB
50k

D1
1N5712

7
6
CFB
0.01F

RL
50k

D2
1N5712

CL
1000pF

5V

5V

Figure 3. Open-Loop High Speed Peak Detector

06/92/61_conv

but at the expense of poor low frequency accuracy. High

values of RL and RB provide good low frequency accuracy, but cause the amplier to slew rate limit, resulting
in poor high frequency accuracy. A good compromise
can be made by adding a feedback capacitor CFB which
enhances the negative slew rate on the () input. The
DC error with a sine wave input is plotted in Figure 4
and is read with a DVM. For comparison purposes the
LM118 error is plotted as well as the error of the simple
Schottky detector.

DC DETECTOR ERROR (%)

50
LM118
VIN = 2VP-P

SCHOTTKY
VIN = 2VP-P

40

30

VIN = 4VP-P

VIN = 4VP-P
dv/dt LIMITING = 1k, 20pF

80
70
60
50
40
30
20

VIN = 6VP-P

20

90

DETECTOR ERROR (%)

Detecting Pulses
A fast pulse detector can be made with the circuit of
Figure 5. A very fast input pulse will exceed the amplier slew rate and cause a long overload recovery time.

Some amount of dv/dt limiting on the input can help

this overload condition, however this will delay the
response. Figure 6 shows the detector error vs pulse
width. Figure7 is the response to a 4VP-P input that
is 80ns wide. The maximum output slew rate in the
photo is 70V/s. This rate is set by the 70mA current
limit driving 1000pF. As a performance benchmark, the
LM118 takes 1.2s to peak detect and settle the same
amplitude input. This slower response is due in part
to the much lower slew rate and lower phase margin
of the LM118.

10
0

LT1190
VIN = 2VP-P
VIN = 4VP-P
VIN = 6VP-P

10

0
1

10
FREQUENCY (MHz)

20

60
40
PULSE WIDTH (ns)

80

100

Figure 6. Detector Error vs Pulse Width

100

Figure 4. Open-Loop Peak Detector Error vs Frequency

Output
5V

RI
1k

3
CI
20pF

VIN

LT1190
2

RS
50

D1
1N5712

6
D2
1N5712

RL
10k

5V
RB
10k

CL
1000pF

Input

5V

5V

Figure 5. Fast Pulse Detector

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Figure 7. Open-Loop Peak Detector Response

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