Experiment 5 - The Ideal Comparator

Up to now you have learned the most important characteristics of a comparator. Thereby you thought of it as an ideal comparator.

In an ideal non-inverting comparator...

• the output is fully LOW, when V_in < V_Ref,
• the output is fully HIGH, when V_in > V_Ref,
• and the output jumps directly from LOW to HIGH and vice versa, when V_in = V_Ref,

Signal profile of an ideal non-inverting comparator.

In fact, ideal comparators are not desirable. For slow changing input voltages, noise near the reference voltage means that the ideal comparator continuously switches between LOW and HIGH.

In the next experiment, you therefore take a look at real comparators...