Preface

In the previous chapters, you have studied a number of important electronic devices. These devices, such as the diode and transistor, are separate devices that are individually packaged devices are referred to as discrete components. and interconnected in a circuit with other devices to form a complete functional unit. Such

Now you will begin the study of linear integrated circuits (ICs) where many transistors diodes packaged in a single case to form a functional circuit. An integrated circuit, such as an operational amplifier (op-amp), is treated as a single device.

resistors and capacitors are fabricated on a single tiny chip of semi conductive material and

AMPLIFIER
Generally, an amplifier is a device for increasing the power of a signal by use of an external energy source. Signal can be a sound, image or video In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In this course we are only concern with audio signal .

EXAMPLE: AUDIO APPLICATION

In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to make the human voice louder or play recorded music.

AMPLIFIER CLASSIFICATION:
Amplifier may be classified in to many different ways (will help you to select the desired amplifier according to your need) According to the input source they are designed to amplify e.g. a guitar amplifier, to perform with an electric guitar) The device they are intended to drive (such as a headphone amplifier) The frequency range of the signals e.g. Audio, IF, RF, and VHF amplifiers whether they invert the signal (inverting amplifiers and non-inverting amplifiers)

Type of device used in the amplification (valve or tube amplifiers, FET amplifiers, BJT
amplifier

TYPES OF ELECTRONIC AMPLIFIER

There are many types of electronic amplifiers, commonly used in radio and television transmitters and receivers, high-fidelity ("hi-fi") stereo equipment, microcomputers and other electronic digital equipment, and guitar and other instrument amplifiers. Critical components include active devices, such as transistor or vacuum tubes. A brief introduction to the many types of electronic amplifier follows.

POWER AMPLIFIER

Audio power amplifiers RF power amplifier, such as for transmitter final stages (see also: Linear amplifier).
Servo motor controllers, where linearity is not important.

VACUUM-TUBE (VALVE) AMPLIFIERS

Semiconductor amplifiers have largely displaced valve amplifiers for low power applications. Valve amplifiers are mainly used in high power applications such as "radar, countermeasures equipment, or communications equipment"

Electric guitar amplification Russian military aircraft, for their EMP tolerance Recording, and audiophile equipment for sound quality improvement

TRANSISTOR AMPLIFIERS
Many common active devices in transistor amplifiers are bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) and metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Applications are numerous; some common examples are

Audio amplifiers in a home stereo or PA system,

RF high power generation for semiconductor equipment, to RF and Microwave applications such as radio transmitters

OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIERS (OP-AMPS)

The term (op amp) commonly applied to integrated circuits. An operational amplifier is an amplifier circuit with very high open loop gain and differential inputs which employs external

feedback for control of its transfer function or gain

FULLY DIFFERENTIAL AMPLIFIER

A fully differential amplifier, usually referred to as an 'FDA' is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with Differential inputs and Differential outputs. It is similar to the operational amplifier but it also has differential output pins. These are usually constructed using BJTs or FETs. signal. Many applications require that a single-ended signal be converted to a differential A major application of fully-differential amplifiers is in low-pass ant-i- alias filters for ADCs with differential inputs and low voltage applications

VIDEO AMPLIFIERS
These deal with video signals and have varying bandwidths depending on whether the video signal is for SDTV, EDTV, HDTV 720p or 1080i/p etc. Certain requirements for step response amplifier are and overshoot are necessary in order for acceptable TV images to be presented. Types of video Oscilloscope vertical amplifiers Distributed amplifiers Switched mode amplifiers Negative resistance devices

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT (AUDIO) AMPLIFIERS

Guitar amplifier Other audio amplifier

There are parameters/constraints/variable that must be considered for designing manufacturing and purchasing an electronic device. We may call these parameter figure of merits

FIGURES OF MERIT
The quality of an amplifier can be characterized by number of specifications

GAIN:
The gain of an amplifier is the ratio of output to input power or amplitude, and is usually measured in decibels.

Bandwidth
Therefore bandwidth can be defined as the difference between the lower and upper half power

points. This is therefore also known as the 3 dB bandwidth.

The bandwidth of an amplifier is the range of frequencies for which the amplifier gives is the half power points (i.e. frequency where the power goes down by half its peak value) on the output vs. frequency curve.

"satisfactory performance". (A common and well-accepted metric for satisfactory performance

Efficiency
Efficiency is a measure of how much of the power source is usefully applied to the amplifier's output.

Class A amplifiers are very inefficient, in the range of 1020% with a max efficiency of 25%
maximum of 50%.

for direct coupling of the output. Inductive coupling of the output can raise their efficiency to a

Class B amplifiers have a very high efficiency but are impractical for audio work because of

high levels of distortion. In practical design, the result of a tradeoff is the class AB design. systems and 50-70% in radio frequency systems with a theoretical maximum of 78.5%.

Modern Class AB amplifiers commonly have peak efficiencies between 3055% in audio Commercially available Class D switching amplifiers have reported efficiencies as high as 90%. Amplifiers of Class C-F are usually known to be very high efficiency amplifiers.

Linearity
An ideal amplifier would be a totally linear device, but real amplifiers are only linear within limits. When the signal drive to the amplifier is increased, the output also increases until a point is reached where some part of the amplifier becomes saturated and cannot produce any more output; this is called clipping, and results in distortion. In most amplifiers a reduction in gain takes place before hard clipping occurs; the result is

a compression effect, which (if the amplifier is an audio amplifier) sounds much less
power (or output power) where the gain is 1 dB less than the small signal gain. hard clipping under overload.

unpleasant to the ear. For these amplifiers, the 1 dB compression point is defined as the input Sometimes this nonlinearity is deliberately designed in to reduce the audible unpleasantness of

Effects of nonlinearity can be reduced with negative feedback.

Linearization is an emergent field, and there are many techniques, such as feed forward, pre distortion, post distortion, in order to avoid the undesired effects of the non-linarites.

Noise
This is a measure of how much noise is introduced in the amplification process. Noise is an undesirable but inevitable product of the electronic devices and components.

Much noise results from intentional economies of manufacture and design time.
The metric for noise performance of a circuit is noise figure or noise factor. Noise figure is a comparison between the output signal to noise ratio and the thermal noise of the input signal.

Slew rate
Slew rate is the maximum rate of change of the output, usually quoted in volts per second (or microsecond). Many amplifiers are ultimately slew-rate limited which sometimes limits the full power bandwidth to frequencies well below the amplifier's small-signal frequency response.

Rise time
The rise time, tr, of an amplifier is the time taken for the output to change from 10% to 90% of its final level when driven by a step input. For a Gaussian response system (or a simple RC roll off), the rise time is approximated by:

tr * BW = 0.35, where tr is rise time in seconds and BW is bandwidth in Hz.

Stability
Stability is an issue in all amplifiers with feedback, amplifying stages. whether that feedback is added intentionally or results unintentionally. It is especially an issue when applied over multiple Stability is a major concern in RF and microwave amplifiers. The degree of an amplifier's stability can be quantified by a so-called stability factor. There are several different stability factors, such as the Stern stability factor and the Linvil stability factor, which specify a parameters. condition that must be met for the absolute stability of an amplifier in terms of its two-port