Analysis of small signal-transistor amplifiers

Reasons for adopting this technique

The gains of an amplifier circuit may be obtained by drawing the load lines on the plotted output
characteristics.

i) Manufacturers do not provide graphs or data to enable the characteristics to be plotted

ii) Even if such data were available, the process would be very time consuming
iii) Obtaining results from plotted graphs is not always very accurate-much depends upon the skill and
interpretation of the individual concerned.

For the above reasons an alternative method, which involves the use of

i) H-parameters Equations

ii) Simple network analysis. This method involves use of the transistor parameters, the data for which
is provided by manufacturers.

BJT Parameters.

The D.C parameters such as input resistance (RIN), output resistance (ROUT), and current gain (hFE), and their
relationship to the transistor’s output characteristics. Additionally an a.c amplifier circuits may be redrawn in
terms of the appearance of circuits to a.c signals, see fig below.

The a.c equivalent circuit of fig (b) is useful in that the current flow paths of the a.c. signals and the effective
a.c load can be appreciated, but in order to analyze the complete amplifier circuit the load lines would still
need to be drawn on the characteristics. What is required is a simple network representation of the transistor
itself, which can then be inserted in fig (b) in place of the transistor symbol.
There are a variety of transistor parameters that may be used in this way. Amongst these are Z-parameters, Y-
parameters, Hybrid π parameters, and h-parameters. For the analysis of small-signal audio frequency
amplifiers the use of h-parameters is the most convenient, and will be the method adopted here.

Provided that the transistor is correctly biased and the input signal is sufficiently small so as to cause
excursions of currents and voltages that remain within the linear portions of the characteristics, then the
transistor itself may be considered as a simple four-terminal network as shown below.
There different representations in a two port network.

Alternative representations
Consider the amplifier circuit and the consequent complete h-parameter equivalent circuit.
Amplifier h-parameter equivalent circuit

H-Parameter equations.
EXAMPLE ONE

For the amplifier circuit below:-

a) Sketch the h-parameter equivalent circuit

b) Determine the amplifier current and voltage gains using;

(i) Network analysis

(ii) h-parameters equations.

The h-parameters are hie = 1.5KΩ; hfe = 90; hoe = 50µS

Solution

Hie = 1.5kΩ; hfe = 90; hoe = 50X10-6

The h-parameter circuit is as shown below

EXAMPLE 2

The transistor used in the circuit below has the following h-parameters, hie = 2kΩ; hoe = 60
µS; hfe = 100.Calculate:

a) The amplifier current gain

b) The actual power delivered to the external load
c) The turn’s ratio required for a matching transformer in order to maximize the power
delivered to the load.

Solution

hie = 2kΩ; hoe = 60 x 10-6 S; hfe = 100;

a) H-parameter equivalent circuit

Field effect transistor (FET) amplifier

FET is uni-polar device i.e. operation depends on only one type of charge carriers (h or e) . It is a Voltage
controlled Device (gate voltage controls drain current).

Advantages of FETs

1. Very high input impedance (109-1012 )

2. Source and drain are interchangeable

3. Low Voltage Low Current Operation is possible (Low-power consumption)

4. Less Noisy

5. No minority carrier storage (Turn off is faster)

6. Very small in size, occupies very small space in ICs

TYPES of FETs (classification)

JFET construction

There are two types of JFET’s: n-channel and p-channel. The n-channel is more widely used.
There are three terminals: Drain (D) and Source (S) are connected to n-channel Gate (G) is connected to the p-type
material.

FET PARAMETERS AND EQUIVALENT CIRCUITS

Since a FET has extremely high input impedance then its input circuit may be represented simply as an open
circuit. Also being a voltage operated device it is convenient to represent the output circuit as a voltage
operated source with the internal resistance (rd) in series with it. The small-signal equivalent circuit will
therefore be as shown below. The FET parameters rd, and gm, should already be familiar to you so far.
EXAMPLE 3

The FET used in the amplifier circuit below has parameters values of rd = 80kΩ and gm = 4mS.

Calculate:

a) The amplifier voltage gain

b) The effective input resistance of the amplifier circuit.

Solution
Resistor-capacitor coupled amplifier and its
frequency response
Single stage RC coupled Amplifier

Single Stage RC-Coupled Amplifier

Figure above shows a practical circuit of a single stage RC coupled amplifier. The different circuit components
and their functions are as described below.
a) Input capacitor(Cin)- This capacitor is used to couple the input signal to the base of the transistor if it is
not used, the signal source resistance RS gets in parallel with R2 thus changing the bias. The capacitor
Cin blocks any d.c. component present in the signal and passes only a.c. signal for amplification.
b) Biasing circuit –The resistances R1, R2 and RE forms the biasing and stabilization circuit for the CE
amplifier. It sets the proper operating point for the amplifier.
 c) Emitter bypass capacitor (CE)-This capacitor is connected in parallel with the emitter resistance RE to
provide low reactance path to the amplified a.c. signal. If it is not used, the amplified a.c. signal passing
through RE will cause voltage drop across it thereby reducing the output voltage of the amplifier.
d) Coupling capacitor (CC) - This capacitor couples the output of the amplifier to the load or to the next
stage of the amplifier. If it is not used, the biasing conditions of the next stage will change due to the
parallel effect of collector resistor RC. i.e. RC will come in parallel with the resistance R1 of the biasing
network of the next stage thus changing the biasing conditions of the next stage amplifier.
Frequency response in amplifier
Frequency response is the curve between the gain of the amplifier (A = Vo / Vi) versus the frequency of the
input signal. The frequency response of a typical RC coupled amplifier is shown below.
Frequency response in Amplifier has 3 regions as shown in Fig: 3.16:
1. Low frequency range
2. Mid-frequency range
3. High frequency range
Low frequency range (< 50 Hz)
Since frequency is inversely proportional to the reactance, the reactance of the coupling
capacitor CC will be quite high at low frequencies. Hence very small amount of signal will pass
through one stage to the next stage. Moreover CE cannot shunt the emitter resistance RE
effectively because of its large reactance at low frequency. These two factors causes the fall of
voltage gain at low frequencies.
Mid frequency range (50Hz - 20 KHz)
In this range of frequencies, voltage gain of the amplifier is constant. The effect of coupling
capacitor in this range is as such to maintain a uniform voltage gain.
High frequency range (> 20 KHz)
In this range of frequency, the reactance of the coupling capacitor CC is very small and it
behaves as a short circuit. This increases the loading effect of next stage (RC will comes in
parallel with R1) and reduces the voltage gain. This reduces the current amplification there by
the voltage drops at high frequencies.
Advantages of RC coupled amplifier
1. Low cost-Because only resistors and capacitors are used for biasing and coupling which
are cheap.
2. Compact-Because modern resistor and capacitors are small and light
3. Good frequency response- The gain is constant over the audio frequency range and
hence suitable for audio frequency amplification.

Feedback in amplifiers

Using feedback in amplifiers especially Negative feedback, the following can be achieved:-

The gain of the circuit is made less sensitive to the values of individual components

 Nonlinear distortion can be reduced

 The effects of noise can be reduced

  The input and output impedances of the amplifier can be modified

 The bandwidth of the amplifier can be extended

Negative feedback

The use of negative feedback reduces the gain, but most other rationales favor its use. Part of
the output signal is taken back to the input with a negative sign.

 For an amplifier with negative feedback the gain becomes

 The large open loop gain of an op-amp makes it possible to build amplifiers whose gain
is determined by the feedback B and not by the gain of the amplifying element itself!

Rationale for Negative Feedback

Why would you feed back a negative signal from the output which cancels part of the input,
reducing the gain? Ans: Negative feedback stabilizes against almost any type of disturbance.

Because:

 It helps to overcome distortion and nonlinearity.

 It flattens frequency response or allows you to tailor it to a desired frequency response
curve.
 It makes properties predictable, less dependent on temperature, manufacturing
differences or other internal properties of the active device.
 Circuit properties are dependent upon the external feedback network and are thus
easily controlled by external circuit elements.
  Circuit design can concentrate on function and not the details of operating point
selection, biasing, and the other details characteristic of discrete transistor amplifier
design.

The practical benefits of Negative Feedback

1. Stabilization of voltage gain

One of the benefits of negative feedback is the stabilization of the voltage gain of an amplifier
against changes in the components (e.g., with temperature, frequency, etc. ). If you represent
the gain without feedback (the open loop gain) by A0 , then the system gain with negative

feedback is

Where B is the fraction of the output which feeds back as a negative voltage at the input. The
extent of this stabilizing influence can be illustrated as follows:

This stabilization increases the effective

bandwidth.

2. Increasing input impedance

3. Decreasing output impedance

4. Decreasing distortion:- The use of negative feedback can discriminate against

sources of noise or distortion within an amplifier. Considering a two-stage amplifier
(after Simpson) with sources of distortion vd1 and vd2 inside the feedback loop.

5. Increasing bandwidth-Amplifier gain will generally decrease at higher frequencies,

but the contribution of negative feedback in stabilizing voltage gain and making it nearly
independent of the open-loop gain is a major contribution to extending the useful
frequency range of amplifiers.

Colpitts Oscillator
The Colpitts oscillator achieves positive feedback by
using an inverting amplifier plus the 180° phase shift
across a parallel resonant circuit. The series capacitors
combine to produce

so the resonant frequency is

HARTLEY OSCILLATOR

The Hartley Oscillator the tuned LC circuit is connected between the collector and the base of
a transistor amplifier. As far as the oscillatory voltage is concerned, the emitter is connected to
a tapping point on the tuned circuit coil. The feedback part of the tuned LC tank circuit is taken
from the centre tap of the inductor coil or even two separate coils in series which are in
parallel with a variable capacitor, C as shown.

The Hartley circuit is often referred to as a split-inductance oscillator because coil L is centre-
tapped. In effect, inductance L acts like two separate coils in very close proximity with the
current flowing through coil section XY induces a signal into coil section YZ below.

Basic Hartley Oscillator design

When the circuit is oscillating, the voltage at point X (collector), relative to point Y (emitter), is
180o out-of-phase with the voltage at point Z (base) relative to point Y. At the frequency of
oscillation, the impedance of the Collector load is resistive and an increase in Base voltage
causes a decrease in the Collector voltage. Then there is a 180o phase change in the voltage
between the Base and Collector and this along with the original 180o phase shift in the
feedback loop provides the correct phase relationship of positive feedback for oscillations to
be maintained.

The amount of feedback depends upon the position of the “tapping point” of the inductor. If
this is moved nearer to the collector the amount of feedback is increased, but the output taken
between the Collector and earth is reduced and vice versa. Resistors, R1 and R2 provide the
usual stabilizing DC bias for the transistor in the normal manner while the capacitors act as DC-
blocking capacitors.

In this Hartley Oscillator circuit, the DC Collector current flows through part of the coil and for
this reason the circuit is said to be “Series-fed” with the frequency of oscillation of the Hartley
Oscillator being given as.
Note: LT is the total cumulatively coupled inductance if two separate coils are used including
their mutual inductance, M.

The frequency of oscillations can be adjusted by varying the “tuning” capacitor, C or by varying
the position of the iron-dust core inside the coil (inductive tuning) giving an output over a wide
range of frequencies making it very easy to tune. Also the Hartley Oscillator produces output
amplitude which is constant over the entire frequency range.

As well as the Series-fed Hartley Oscillator above, it is also possible to connect the tuned tank
circuit across the amplifier as a shunt-fed oscillator as shown below.

EXAMPLE
A Hartley Oscillator circuit has two individual inductors of 0.5mH each are designed to
resonate in parallel with a variable capacitor that can be adjusted between 100pF and 500pF.
Determine the upper and lower frequencies of oscillation and also the Hartley oscillator’s
bandwidth.

From above we can calculate the frequency of oscillations for a Hartley Oscillator as:

The circuit consists of two inductive coils in series, so the total inductance is given as:

Hartley Oscillator Upper Frequency

Hartley Oscillator Lower Frequency

Hartley Oscillator Bandwidth

The Colpitts Oscillator

The Colpitts Oscillator, named after its inventor Edwin Colpitts is another type of LC oscillator
design. In many ways, the Colpitts oscillator is the exact opposite of the Hartley Oscillator we
looked at in the previous tutorial. Just like the Hartley oscillator, the tuned tank circuit consists
of an LC resonance sub-circuit connected between the collector and the base of a single stage
transistor amplifier producing a sinusoidal output waveform.

The basic configuration of the Colpitts Oscillator resembles that of the Hartley Oscillator but
the difference this time is that the centre tapping of the tank sub-circuit is now made at the
junction of a “capacitive voltage divider” network instead of a tapped autotransformer type
inductor as in the Hartley oscillator.

Colpitts Oscillator Tank Circuit

The Colpitts Oscillator uses a capacitor voltage divider as its feedback source. The two
capacitors, C1 and C2 are placed across a common inductor, L as shown so that C1, C2 and L
forms the tuned tank circuit the same as for the Hartley oscillator circuit.
The advantage of this type of tank circuit configuration is that with less self and mutual
inductance in the tank circuit, frequency stability is improved along with a more simple design.

As with the Hartley oscillator, the Colpitts oscillator uses a single stage bipolar transistor
amplifier as the gain element which produces a sinusoidal output. Consider the circuit below.

Basic Colpitts Oscillator Circuit

The transistor amplifiers emitter is connected to the junction of capacitors, C1 and C2 which are
connected in series and act as a simple voltage divider. When the power supply is firstly applied,
capacitors C1 and C2 charge up and then discharge through the coil L. The oscillations across the
capacitors are applied to the base-emitter junction and appear in the amplified at the collector output.

The amount of feedback depends on the values of C1 and C2 with the smaller the values of C
the greater will be the feedback.

The required external phase shift is obtained in a similar manner to that in the Hartley
oscillator circuit with the required positive feedback obtained for sustained un-damped
oscillations. The amount of feedback is determined by the ratio of C1 and C2. These two
capacitances are generally “ganged” together to provide a constant amount of feedback so
that as one is adjusted the other automatically follows.

The frequency of oscillations for a Colpitts oscillator is determined by the resonant frequency
of the LC tank circuit and is given as:
 where CT is the capacitance of C1 and C2 connected in series and is
given as:.

The configuration of the transistor amplifier is of a Common Emitter Amplifier with the output
signal 180o out of phase with regards to the input signal. The additional 180 o phase shift
require for oscillation is achieved by the fact that the two capacitors are connected together in
series but in parallel with the inductive coil resulting in overall phase shift of the circuit being
zero or 360o.

Resistors, R1 and R2 provide the usual stabilizing DC bias for the transistor in the normal
manner while the capacitor acts as DC-blocking capacitors. The radio-frequency choke (RFC) is
used to provide a high reactance (ideally open circuit) at the frequency of oscillation, ( ƒr ) and
a low resistance at DC.

Colpitts Oscillator Example No1

A Colpitts Oscillator circuit having two capacitors of 10pF and 100pF respectively are
connected in parallel with an inductor of 10mH. Determine the frequency of oscillations of the
circuit.The oscillation frequency for a Colpitts Oscillator is given as:

The circuit consists of two capacitors in series, so the total capacitance is given as:

The inductance of the inductor is given as 10mH, then the frequency of oscillation is:

Then the frequency of oscillations for the Colpitts Oscillator is 527.8kHz

Colpitts Oscillator using an Op-amp

Just like the previous Hartley Oscillator, as well as using a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) as
the amplifiers active stage of the Colpitts oscillator, we can also use a field effect transistor,
(FET) or an operational amplifier, (op-amp). The operation of an Op-amp Colpitts Oscillator is
exactly the same as for the transistorised version with the frequency of operation calculated in
the same manner. Consider the circuit below.

Colpitts Oscillator Op-amp Circuit

The advantages of the Colpitts Oscillator over the Hartley oscillators are that the Colpitts oscillator
produces a more pure sinusoidal waveform due to the low impedance paths of the capacitors at high
frequencies. Also due to these capacitive reactance properties the Colpitts oscillator can operate at
very high frequencies even into the microwave region.