Lab 6 Report

Ishaan Aggarwal
November 22, 2021

1 Differential Amplifier
In this section we will be building differential amplifiers and measuring theoretically calcu-
lated values to the experimentally found ones. For part a we will be building the amplifier
shown in Fig 1. In this circuit it is important that we take two transistors which have similar
hf e values. I went through transistors and chose Q1 hf e = 232 and Q2 hf e = 248. This
makes it so that the two halves are close enough to being the same. The swamping 22Ω
resistors help to counteract some of the difference in the transistors.

Figure 1: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part a of this section.

The tail current can be calculated using the following formula:

VEE − VBE
It = (1)
RE

1
 Inputting the values we are using in our circuit according to Fig 1, we get a theoretical
It = 7.53mA. Measurement of tail current in the lab reveals It = 7.42mA (measurement
made through a DMM device). Accounting for the uncertainty in the DMM our measured
value is in agreement with the theoretical calculation. The base current in this case can
be calculated using the emitter current which is found using the tail current. We make the
approximation that both sides of the amplifier are perfectly matched and thus we can use
the equation,
It
IE = (2)
2
and then making another approximation about the transistors used we can use the fol-
lowing equation to find the base current,

IE = βIB (3)
Following these equations we calculate IE = 3.76mA, Q1 IB1 = 16.2µA and Q2 IB2 =
15.1µA. (Here I used the two separate β values associated with the transistor to get a more
accurate calculation. My measured values are IB1 = IB2 = 14.8µA. This result is expected
as the theoretical values are the ideal values.

In the next part of this section we will be building a circuit according to Fig 2. First
by jumpering the base of Q1 to ground we can measure the Vout . Here any deviation of
Vout from the expected +6.39V will be Vout(of f ) . I measured Vout = 6.66V which gives me
Vout(of f ) = 0.27V . Then to measure Vin(of f ) I connected a potentiometer voltage-divider (as
shown in 2) and changed the potentiometer pass-through until I got +6.39V on Vout . Then
measured the base voltage of Q1 as Vin(of f ) = −12V .

Figure 2: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part b of this section.

Next we will be making the circuit Fig 3 and measure the differential and common-mode
gains. Since the function generator can only output a minimum of 100mVpp , I built a po-

2
tentiometer voltage divider to lower the input voltage. The theoretical differential amplifier
gain (A) can be calculated using the following equation,
Vout RC 1.5kΩ
A= = ′ = = 112.8 (4)
Vin 2re 2(6.649)
Comparing this to our measured gain of 111, we see that there is agreement with the
values. The difference in the result can be attributed to the value of re′ which is an approxi-
mation and can change the values.

To calculate the common-mode gain, there is going to be a slight change in the circuit.
The input voltage will now be sent into both of the bases of the transistors. The expected
gain (Acm ) can be calculated using the formula,
RC
ACM = (5)
2RE
In this formula we assume symmetry of the two sides, which means that there is no current
flowing on the cross wire so we can remove it from the circuit. The resulting circuit looking
like a heavily swamped common-emitter circuit. For our circuit RE = RC and therefore we
get a theoretical gain of ACM = 0.5. My measured gain is ACM = 0.64, which is a bit higher
than expected. A potential reason for this is the difference in the two transistors and the 2
sides not being perfectly symmetrical.

Figure 3: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part c of this section. This
circuit is modified slightly in the latter measurements to measure the common-mode gain.

2 Operational Amplifiers
In the first part of this section we are going to be comparing the input offset and bias
currents for the 741C and TL071 op-amps. The circuit for this section is shown in Fig 4.
The measurement was made using a handheld DMM. The typical (theoretical) values of the

3
dc voltage at both inputs is calculated using spec sheets found online for both op-amps. The
typical Iin(bias) , the theoretical voltage and the measured voltage is shown in the table below.

Op-Amp Typ. Iin(bias) Expected Vin Vin Measured

741C 80nA 17.6mV 6.6mV
TL071 5pA 1.1µV 0V

Here we see a big discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental for 741C. This is
due to the spec sheets and our specific op-amps. The spec sheets give a typical value which
is not what the op-amps are always operating at. For TL071 the current flowing through
the op-amp is so small that the DMM is unable to detect a voltage in the circuit.

Figure 4: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part a of this section.

In part b) we will be constructing a circuit according to Fig 5. First connecting the 741C
op-amp we get a dc voltage output of Vout(of f ) = 3.826V . the closed loop gain of the circuit
can be calculated using the following equation, assuming that at input there is a virtual
ground;
Rf
ACL = − (6)
R1
Vout(of f )
Then using ACL = 1000 we find the input voltage offset by Vin(of f ) = ACL
. Which
gives us Vin(of f ) = 3.826mV for 741C.

Then by connecting the TL071 op-amp we measure a dc voltage output of Vout(of f ) =

24.5mV . We again use the closed loop gain equation shown previously. This gives us
V
ACL = 1000x. We then find the input voltage offset by Vin(of f ) = out(of
ACL
f)
. Which gives us
Vin(of f ) = 24.5µV for TL071.

4
 Figure 5: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part b of this section.

In part c) we modify the circuit of part b) a little. The circuit used in this section is
shown in Fig 6. Here we are trying to saturate the op-amp by providing about 12mV to the
inverting input. To measure the max current out I used a DMM. I will be connecting both
741C and the TL071 op-amps and have displayed the results in the table below;

Op-Amp Im ax
741C 26.6mA
TL071 19.8mA

Figure 6: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part c of this section.

In part d) of this section we will be making the circuit shown in Fig 7. I have chosen
R2 = 100kΩ to give me ACL = 100. Starting my input signal at Vin = 100mVP P at 1kHz.

5
 Figure 7: This is the circuit diagram of the circuit used in part d of this section.

Fig 8 shows the output of the circuit vs the input. We see that the output is about 20V
while the input is 200mV which confirms our theoretical gain of the circuit of 100x. We
begin to see some clipping in Fig 9, as this is driven by 125mV input signal. The flattened
peaks of the output clearly show this phenomena. By this we get a MPP value of 20V for
this circuit with a 741C op-amp.

Figure 8: This is the resulting oscilloscope measurement of part d) with 100mV at 1kHz.
Channel 1 shows the output while channel 2 shows the input signal.

6
Figure 9: This is the resulting oscilloscope measurement of part d) with 125mV at 1kHz.
At this input, clipping is clearly visible in the output of the circuit. Channel 1 shows the
output while channel 2 shows the input signal.

Using the same circuit as in part d) (Fig 7) we measured the slew rate in part e). To
measure the slew rate, I input a square wave into the circuit, with the expectation that the
slew rate will be visible on the output due to the sudden change in turning the input on and
off. Since the output is inverted, the slew rate output is also expected to be inverted.

Figure 10: Channel 1 shows the slew rate inverted response of the circuit with the input
shown in channel 2

Fig 10 shows the output of the circuit and it matches our predictions of the slew rate. We
can measure the slope of the slew rate at the beginning of the curve to measure the largest
slope of the slew rate. In an ideal world it would match the input signal and be a straight
line. Using the cursor function in the oscilloscope I measured the largest slope of the slew
V
rate to be 4 µs , which is quite large.