INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

This experiment is focused on cascaded amplifiers. A cascaded amplifier is a form of series

amplifiers, where each amplifier sends it output to drive an input to the next amplifier. Experiment
2 is divided into three parts where it demonstrates three possible methods of linking ac signals
between two amplifiers in cascade. These are Direct Coupling, RC Coupling, and Transformer
Coupling. Both DC and AC analysis are taken into consideration, only this time, it is added with
loaded and bypassed setups.
Table 2-1a shows the DC voltages of a Direct-coupled amplifier. Same voltage supply was
induced in the circuit of 14.96 V. To check if the transistors are working properly, voltages across
the base-emitter and base collector of the junctions of transistors are computed using the results in
Table 2-1. The computed results were used to verify that the amplifier is in active region that is
the base-emitter is in forward bias and the base-collector is in reverse bias. The first stage amplifier
of a direct-coupled amplifier setup uses an NPN transistor while the next stage uses a PNP
transistor. In Table 2-1b of the data sheet shows the ac voltages of direct-coupled amplifier of three
cases: unloaded, loaded, and bypassed. In the results under the unloaded case, both stages of the
cascaded amplifier is treated separately. It shows that the output voltage of the first stage is the
input of the second stage. Next, under the loaded case, the output of this case is less than the output
in the unloaded case. This is because adding an addition load resistor to the circuit decreases
voltage gain. As for the bypassed case, the output of the second amplifier is greater than the output
of the unloaded and loaded case. This is because the usage of a bypass capacitor shorts one of the
resistors in the second stage which consequently removes or disregards the resistance at the emitter
terminal. Due to the decrease of resistance, voltage gain will increase. The graph in Graph 2-1 is
just a proof or an indicator that the voltage of a bypassed case is greater than the unloaded and
loaded.
Another method of linking ac signals between two amplifiers is the RC-Coupling. In this
setup, both of the stages make use of NPN transistors. Thus, we can expect that the values of VBE
are positive while the values of VBC are negative. At Table 2-2b, it can be seen that the VO1 is equal
to the VI2, adding a load decreases VO2L, and adding a bypassed capacitor gives us the highest
result which is VO2LB. In Graph 2-2 it is observed that there are phase reversals, hence, the circuit
uses both a common-emitter type of small-signal amplifier.
Lastly, the transformer-coupled amplifier were also analyzed, DC and AC. Under Table 23a, similar method from the previous interpretations can be done. We checked the biasing of the
junctions in base-emitter and base-collector in order to ensure that the amplifier is in active region.
The results in Table 2-3b is also the same as the results under RC-Coupled amplifier. When adding
a load resistance, the voltage output decrease. While adding a bypassed capacitor disregards the
resistances, hence, voltage gain increases. Phase-reversals is also observed in the Transformercoupled amplifier. The only difference it has it that, a transformer allows addition impedance
matching.

CONCLUSION

In this experiment we were able to familiarize us with the methods of linking ac signals,
namely: Direct-coupling, RC-Coupling, and Transformer-Coupling.
Under the Direct-Coupling, the first stage amplifier uses an NPN transistor while the
second stage amplifier uses a PNP transistor. While on the RC-Coupling and TransformerCoupling, both make use of NPN transistors. It is observed that in a cascaded amplifier, the output
of the first stage is also the input of the second stage. Three cases are taken into consideration:
unloaded, loaded, and bypassed. In a loaded case, the voltage output is always less than the
unloaded. This is because an addition of a resistor load decreases its voltage gain since the parallel
connection of the resistors are observed. On the other hand, under the bypassed condition it has
the highest voltage output compared to that of unloaded and loaded. Due to the fact that an added
capacitor shorts a resistor and consequently disregards it. When a resistor is disregarded, an
increase in the voltage gain will happen.
Finally, when computing for the overall gain of an amplifier it is simply the product of all
the stages or amplifications. In other words, gain of a cascaded amplifier can be solved by the
ration of the final voltage output with the initial output.