Voltage Regulators the Ua723 Linears Other Major Commercial Category

# Voltage Regulators: the uA723, Linear's Other Major Commercial Category

## 1. A Different Analog Job: Holding a Voltage Steady

Alongside general-purpose amplifiers, linear integrated circuits found a second major commercial category in voltage regulation: circuits that take an unregulated, varying input voltage and hold a steady, precise output voltage regardless of changes in load current or input fluctuation, a job every piece of electronic equipment with a power supply needs solved somewhere.

The uA723, an adjustable precision voltage regulator, let a designer set a specific output voltage and current limit using a small number of external resistors, bringing the same monolithic-integration argument that had already worked for amplifiers to an entirely different analog function.

## 2. Precision Under Load, Not Just Gain

Where an operational amplifier is judged mainly on gain, bandwidth, and input characteristics, a voltage regulator is judged on how tightly it holds its output voltage steady as load current swings and as the input supply itself drifts — a different kind of precision problem, but one that monolithic integration solved for the same underlying reason: a single die could hold internal reference and feedback components matched and thermally close to each other far better than a board of discrete parts ever could.