I.

Semiconductor materials
• Conductors and Insulators: Good conductors such as copper and silver
can conduct electricity with little resistance because their crystal structure
allows a loosely bound valence electron per atom to move freely
throughout the lattice. Insulators do not conduct electric current as no free
electrons exist in the material.
• Semiconductors: The two semiconductors of great importance are silicon
(Si 14) and germanium (Ge 32), which both have four valence electrons.
In crystal structure (lattice) is a tetrahedral pattern with each atom sharing
one valence electron with each of four neighbors (covalent bonds).

If an electron gains enough thermal energy (1.1 eV for Si or 0.7 eV for

Ge), it may break the covalent bond and becomes a free electron of
negative charge, while leaving a vacancy or a hole of positive charge. In
an electric field, a free electron may move to a new location to fill a hole
there, i.e., both such electrons and holes contribute to electrical
conduction. Such crystal is called intrinsic semiconductor.

At room temperature, relatively few electrons gain enough energy to

become free electrons, the over all conductivity of such materials is low,
thereby their name semiconductors.

• Doped Semiconductors: The conductivity of semiconductor material can

be improved by doping, i.e., by adding an impurity element with either
three or five valence electrons, called, respectively, trivalent and
pentavalent elements.
o n-type semiconductor: When a small amount of pentavalent
element is added, a silicon atom in the lattice may be replaced by a
pentavalent atom with four of its valent electrons forming the
 covalent bounds and one extra free electron. This is an n-type
semiconductor whose conductivity is much improved compared to
the intrinsic semiconductors, due to the extra free electrons in the
lattice, which are called predominant or majority current
carriers. There also exist some tiny number of holes called
minority carriers.
o p-type semiconductor: When a small amount of trivalent element
is added, a silicon atom in the lattice may be replaced by a trivalent
atom with only three valent electrons forming three covalent bounds
and a hole in the lattice. This is a p-type semiconductor whose
conductivity is also much improved compared to the intrinsic
semiconductors, due to the holes in the lattice, which are called
predominant or majority current carriers. There also exist some
tiny number of free electrons called minority carriers.

• pn Junction

When p-type and n-type materials in contact with each other, a p-n
junction is formed due to two effects:
 o Diffusion: Although both sides are electrically neutral, but they
have different concentration of electrons (the n-type) and holes (the
p-type), and the free electrons in the n-type material begin to
diffuse across the p-n junction between the two materials, due to
their thermal motion, and to fill some of the holes in the p-type
material. Equivalently, the holes are also drifting from the p-type
side to the n-type side.
o Electric Field If no other forces were involved, the diffusion would
carry out continuously until the free electrons and holes are
uniformly distributed across both materials. However, as the result
of the diffusion process, electrical field is gradually established,
negative on the side of p-type material due to the extra electrons,
positive on the side of n-type material due to the loss of free
electrons. This electrical field prevents further diffusion as the
electrons on the n-type side are expelled from the p-type side by
the electrical field.

The effects of both diffusion and electric field eventually lead to an

equilibrium where the two effects balance each other so that there are no
more charge carriers (free electrons or holes) crossing the p-n junction.
This region around the p-n junction, called the depletion region as there
no longer exist freely movable charge carriers, becomes a barrier between
the two ends of the material that prevent current to flow through.
II. Diodes
Due to the fact that there exist few freely movable charge carriers in the depletion
region around the p-n junction, the conductivity is very poor. However, if certain
voltage is applied to the two ends of the material, the conductivity may change,
depending one the polarity of the applied voltage:

• Reverse bias (negative to p-type, positive to n-type)

The negative voltage applied to the p-type will repel electrons in n-type
and attract holes in p-type so that both carriers are moving away from the
p-n junction. As the depletion region becomes thicker than before, there is
no current through the p-n junction and the conductivity is zero.

• Forward bias (positive to p-type, negative to n-type)

The positive voltage applied to the p-type will attract electrons in n-type
and repel holes in p-type so that both carriers are moving towards the p-n
junction. As the depletion region becomes thinner, the conductivity is
improved and there is current through the p-n junction. The conductivity
increases as the voltage becomes higher.
The voltage-current behavior of a p-n junction is described by

where

• is the reverse saturation current, a tiny current that flows in the reverse

direction when , due to the minority carriers. is about

A for Si and A for Ge.

• is the voltage equivalent temperature, where

Joules/Kelvin is Boltzmann's constant,

coulomb is the charge of an electron, and is the

temperature in degree K. For room temperature ,

• is the ideality factor which is 1 for Ge and 1.4 for Si

In particular, when , , when , , when

, .
The resistance of an electrical device is defined as . For a diode,

as is not a linear function, the resistance is not a

constant, but a function of :

As , i.e., , we have

If we let , , and , then we have .

Models of diodes:

• Ideal model: if , then , else

• Diode with a voltage threshold : if , then ,

else

• Diode with a voltage threshold and a resistance if

, then , else
• A current source can be added to simulate the reverse saturation current.
 1 mA 10 mA 100 mA

0.58 V 0.67 V 0.75 V

for Si ( , )

0.06 V 0.12 V 0.18 V

for Ge ( , )

In general, when the forward voltage applied to a diode exceeds 0.7V (or 0.3V)
for silicon (or germanium) material, the diode is assumed to be conducting with
very little resistance.

Example 1: In the half-wave rectifier circuit shown below, ,

, and is a silicon diode. Find the current through and voltage

across .
• Method 0: The simplest model is to assume the diode is an ideal rectifier
with infinite resistance when it is reverse biased but zero resistance when
it is forward biased. As the diode is forward biased, the current is

.
• Method 1: Since the diode is forward biased, we can assume the voltage
across the diode is and the current can be determined by Ohm's law

to be .

• Method 2: The current and voltage have to satisfy two equations

simultaneously:

The first equation relates the current through and voltage across a
diode, while the second is obtained by KVL. Substituting the first equation
 into the second, we get , which can be

solved numerically for , then can be found.

• Method 3: The two simultaneous equations above can also be solved

graphically. The first equation is the characteristic

curve of the diode, while the second equation is the load

line, a straight line passing through and

. The intersection point of the two curves is

approximately at .

Example 2: Design a converter (adaptor) that converts AC power supply of 115V

and 60 Hz to a DC voltage source of 14 V. When the load is , the variation
(ripple) of the output DC voltage must be 5% or less.
 • The peak of the secondary output is with RMS value

, the ratio of the transformer should be 115:10.

• When the load is , the load current is

• During the period between two peaks , the

charge on the capacitor is reduced by

.
• The voltage across the capacitor is therefore dropped by

.
• Solve above equation for , we get

This is an approximation based on the assumption that the load current is

constant, as the voltage drop is small. Otherwise the exponential decay of the
voltage across capacitor should be used, and the current is:
III. Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT)
A Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) has three terminals connected to three doped
semiconductor regions. In an npn transistor, a thin and lightly doped p-type
material is sandwiched between two thicker n-type materials; while in a pnp
transistor, a thin and lightly doped n-type material is sandwiched between two
thicker p-type materials. In the following we will only consider npn BJTs.
In many schematics of transistor circuits (especially when there exist a large
number of transistors in the circuit), the circle in the symbol of a transistor is
omitted.
The three terminals of a transistor are typically used as the input, output and the
common terminal of both input and output. Depending on which of the three
terminals is used as common terminal, there are three different configurations:
common emitter (CE), common base (CB) and common collector (CC). The
common emitter (CE) is the most typical configuration:

• Common-Base (CB)

In the normal operation, the EB junction is forward biased while the CB

junction is reverse biased.
The behavior of the npn-transistor is determined by its two pn-junctions:

o The emitter-base (EB) junction:

The forward biased EB junction allows a current

to flow through, where

 is due to electrons from E to B,

 is due to the holes from B to E.

 As p-type base is thin and lightly doped, the fraction is

very close to unity , i.e.,

 Most electrons from emitter (e.g. ) go

through base to reach the CB junction, only a small number

of the electrons are combined

with the hole in base.

o The base-collector (BC) junction:

 The reverse biased CB junction blocks the majority carriers (holes
in p-type base, electrons in n-type collector), but lets through the
minority carriers, electrons in base and holes in collector, including

 most of the electrons from emitter ,

 the reverse saturate current of the CB junction

,

These two currents form the overall collector current

The base current is the small difference between two nearly

equal currents and :

• Common-Emitter
The input current is , , and the output current is

Solving for , we get

Here is the current-transfer ratio for CE (typically,

and ), and is the reverse

saturation current between collector and emitter.
IV. Input/Output Characteristics and
AC Behavior
• Common-Base:
o Input characteristics:

The EB junction is essentially the same as a forward biased diode,

as the effect of collector-base voltage is small. The current-

voltage characteristics is essentially the same as that of a diode:

o Output characteristics:

The CB junction is reverse biased, the current depends on the

current . When , , the current caused by the

minority carriers crossing the pn-junction. This is similar to the
diode current-voltage characteristics seen before, except both axes

are reversed (rotated 180 degrees) as both voltage and

current are defined in the opposite direction. When is

increased, is increased correspondingly. The

voltage only slightly effects as is slightly increased when

is increased.

As , CB configuration has not current amplification effect.

• Common-Emitter:
o Input characteristics:

As in CB case, the EB junction of CE is essentially the same as a

forward biased diode, as the effect of collector-emitter voltage

is small. The current-voltage characteristics is essentially the same
as that of a diode:

o Output characteristics:

The CB junction is reverse biased, the current

depends on the current . When

, , the current caused by the minority carriers

crossing the pn-junctions. When is increased, is

correspondingly increased by fold. Also, as increased will

slightly increase but much greater increase in ,

will increase more significantly as increases.

• It is seen that various parameters of a transistor change as functions of

temperature. In particular, value increases along with temperature.

• Example: Assume in the CE circuit shown above, ,

, , . Find output voltage .

o Find

o Find . As the BE junction is forward biased, the voltage drop is

about , and
 o Find

o Find

Load Line: The last equation above is a straight

line, called the load line, on the output (collector) current-voltage
characteristics plot, which passes through the following two points:

o When , .

o When , .

The actual collector current and voltage can be determined as the

intersection of the load line and the curve in the current-voltage

characteristics, given a specific base current , as they have to satisfy

both the internal I-V characteristics of the transistor and the external

voltage source ( and load resistor . The intersection is called the

operating point or -point.

V. Dynamics with AC input
As , common-emitter configuration is commonly used for
amplification. Consider the following example:

The value of the transistor can be estimated from the plot to be:

Assume and the load resistance is . The two

points that determine the load line are

• , .

• ,

Also assume the input current is a superposition of DC current and

a sinusoidal signal . The overall input base current is

therefore , i.e.,

From the I-V characteristics plot, we can find graphically

• DC component of the output (collector) current is ;

• DC component of output (collector) voltage is

;
• Sinusoidal component of output current is (between 2 mA and 6 mA):

• Sinusoidal component of the output voltage is

• Overall output current is

• Overall output voltage is

The magnitude (peak-to-peak) of the input current is ,

the magnitude of the output current is , i.e., the current is

amplified 40 fold.

Switch

From the current-voltage plot of the output characteristics, we see that the
operation of a transistor can be in one of the three possible regions:

• Linear region: When the input voltage is about , the

transistor works in the linear range where the collector current

is proportional to base current . Amplification takes place in the linear

region due to this relationship.

• Cutoff region: When the input voltage (possibly negative),

and is close to zero. The

transistor is said to be cut off.

• Saturation region: When the input voltage is higher than ,

will significantly increase (due to the exponential relationship between

and ). But as the maximum value of is restricted by the voltage

supply and the collector and emitter resistors ( ), the

linear relationship no longer holds. In this case, the transistor is

said to be saturated and .

Severe distortion in output will be caused if a transistor amplification circuit is

working near either the cutoff or the saturation region, as can be seen in the
following sections.
Example

Assume , , , ,

find output voltage when the input voltage is 0.2V, 0.7V and 0.8V.

• , the forward bias of BE junction is

insufficient, , ,

. The
transistor is cutoff, or the switch is open.
 • , the BE junction is forward biased, from the input

characteristics, we find , and ,

. The transistor is in
linear range.

• , the BE junction is forward biased, from the

input characteristics, we find , and ,

. This means it is
impossible for the transistor to draw from the power source of

, as the maximum current is .

In this case, can be determined on the output characteristics to be

about 0.2V (intersection of load line and the curve corresponding to

), and . The transistor is

in saturation range, or the switch is closed.

Conclusion: a change in input from 0.2 to 0.8 switches the output current from 0
to about 10 mA, and the output voltage from 15 to 0.2 V, and the transistor is in

cut-off, linear, and saturation region, respectively. is only valid when

the transistor is in the linear region.

VI. DC Biasing
The DC operating point of a transistor circuit need to be set up for it to work
properly. The operating point is determined by the biasing circuit:

• Fixed current biasing This is the simplest biasing.

As the voltage (0.7V) is small compared to (>10V), the base

current can be estimated to be:

The collector current is

which is directly proportional to . The output voltage is

As and depend on , which is different for different transistors
and changes as a function of temperature, the operating point is unstable
and inconsistent.

Example 1: In the circuit of fixed current biasing, ,

, . Assume

and changes from to . Find the operating points for

and the two extreme values of .

o When ,

o When ,
 o When ,

How can there be a negative voltage while the voltage supply is

15V? The collector current can no longer be determined by

, as the maximum corresponding to the transistor

fully saturated with is

• Self-biasing

To correct the problem above, self-biasing circuit is used to decrease the

effect of changing by negative feed back. Qualitatively, if is

increased due to increased or temperature, the following happens:

This is a negative feedback loop which tends to stabilize the operating
point.

To analyze this circuit quantitatively, we first find the base voltage and

base current . Note that only when the base current is much smaller

than the current through ( ), can we approximate by

voltage divider as:

If the condition is not satisfied, we have to use Thevenin's

theorem to replace the base circuit by a voltage source

in series with a resistance

Next we use KVL to the base loop to get

Substituting

and solving for , we get

The last approximation is based on the further assumption that even for

the minimum possible value of the transistor in the circuit, it is still true

that , e.g., . If this condition is

satisfied, , and thereby the Q operation point is totally determined by

the resistors independent of the value of the transistor. Comparing this

with fixed biasing, where is directly

proportional to the value of the transistor, circuit has a much more

stable operating point.

Example 2: In the circuit of self-biasing, , ,

, , , Assume and

changes from to . Find the operating points for and the

two extreme values of .

o When ,
o When ,
o When ,
VII. Small Signal Model and H
parameters
Two-port circuit:

A transistor circuit can be treated as a two-port circuit with input and output ports

with four variables . In general two of the four variables are

independent and the rest two can be expressed as their functions:

We use the third hybrid model to describe the CE transistor circuit with ,

, , and :

Taking the total derivative, we get:

where are the hybrid model parameters:

• : input impedance with (output short-

circuit). This is AC resistance between base and emitter, the reciprocal of
the slope of the current-voltage curve of the input characteristics.

• : reverse transfer voltage ratio with (input open-

circuit), representing how affects . In general is small and

can be ignored.

• : forward transfer current ratio or current amplification

factor with (output short-circuit). Typically, is in the range

of 20 to 200.

• : output admittance with (input open-

circuit). It is slope of the current-voltage curve in the output characteristics.

In general is small and can be ignored.

If all variables , , and are small signals (around the DC operating

point and far away from either the cut-off or the saturation region), these
differential quantities can be rewritten as
In general, and are small and could be assumed zero to further simplify
the model, as shown on the left of the figure.
The equivalent AC resistance between base and emitter can be found as

below. Assume small signal around the DC operating point

, the base voltage is and the base current is

(1)

Note that , and

Then we get

Typically, , , . Based
on the small signal model, a transistor can be analyzed as a two-port circuit
containing four elements, as shown in the figure below:
VIII. AC Amplification
Based on the previous discussion, a single transistor AC amplification circuit is
given as shown in the figure.

If the capacitances of the coupling capacitors and the emitter by-pass capacitor
are large enough with respect to the frequency of the AC signal in the circuit is
high enough, these capacitors can all be approximated as short circuit.

Moreover, note that the AC voltage of the voltage supply is zero, it can be
treated the same as the ground. Now the AC behavior of the transistor
amplification circuit can be modeled by the following small signal equivalent
circuit:

AC Input Impedance: For AC signals, the input of the amplification circuit is

shown below, where is the internal resistance of the signal source, and the

input impedance of the circuit is the three resistances , and in parallel:

where is the resistance of the PN-junction) between the base and the emitter
of the transistor, as discussed before:

AC Output Impedance: This is simply the resistance of the resistor

AC Amplification Gain: Given the AC input voltage , the base voltage can
be found (voltage divider) to be

and the base current is

The collector current is and the output voltage is

Here the negative sign indicates the fact that is out of phase with ,
as
The voltage gain is therefore

In particular, if the input resistance is much larger than the internal resistance of
the voltage source, i.e.,

and the output resistance is much smaller than the load resistance, i.e.,

then the gain can be approximated as

Example:

This figure shows a common-emitter amplification circuit of npn BJT. Assume

We assume the capacitors are large enough so that they can be considered as
short circuit for the AC signals. The DC and AC circuits are shown below:
• Find base current:

• Find DC load line: when , , when ,

The DC load line is determined by these two points

• Find DC operating point : The intersection of the DC load line and the

curve corresponding to is the DC operating point with

and (i.e., ).
• Find AC load line: The AC load is

. The AC load line is a

straight line passing the DC operating point with its slope equal to

. The intersections of AC load line with and

axes can be found by
 and

• Find input current: Assume input voltage is and

, the overall base voltage is

, and the corresponding base

current can be found from the input i-v characteristics to be

between 20 and 60 .
• Find AC output voltage: This can be found graphically from the output i-v

characteristics, based on , to be

, and the current is

. Note that the output is in

opposite phase (180 phase shift) with the input.
• Find the voltage gain:
For a transistor to work properly, its DC operating point has to be set right,
otherwise distortion may be caused, as shown below. So to avid distortion, the
dynamic range should be maximized by setting the DC operating point at the
middle point of the load line.

The circuit above can also be analyzed using the small-signal model.
The DC variables:

The AC variables:

The voltage gain is:

The input resistance is , the output resistance is

.
IX. Emitter Follower
An emitter follower circuit shown in the figure is widely used in AC amplification
circuits. The input and output of the emitter follower are the base and the emitter,
respectively, therefore this circuit is also called common-collector circuit.

DC operating point

Solving these equations, we can get , and .

AC small-signal equivalent circuit

We assume and therefore can be ignored, and have

Voltage gain:

As , is smaller than but approximately equal

to 1.

The input resistance:

The input resistance is in parallel with the resistances of the circuit to its right

including the load , which can be found by . But as

we have
Comparing this with the input resistance of the common-emitter circuit

, we see that the emitter follower has a very large input

resistance.

The output resistance:

The output resistance is in parallel with the resistances of the circuit to its left

including the source, which can be found by , where

and we have

Alternatively, this resistance can be found as , where is the

output voltage with load open-circuit and is the current with load

short-circuit . To find and , the voltage source with

internal resistance and a load can be converted by Thevenin's theorem

to

and can be found to be

now we have

The overall output resistance is

Comparing this with the output resistance of the common-emitter circuit

, we see that the emitter follower circuit has very small output
resistance.

Conclusion:

Emitter follower does not amplify voltage. However, due to its large input
resistance drawing little current from the source, and its small output resistance
capable of driving heavy load, it is widely used as both the input and output
stages for a multi-stage voltage amplification circuit due to its property of very
favorable input/output resistances.
X. Multi-stage Amplification
In order to have an amplification gain, multi-stage amplification circuits are
needed. Such a circuit is typically composed of two or more cascaded transistor
amplifiers, coupled in one of three possible ways:

• Capacitor coupling:

o Independent DC operating point;

o AC amplification of high gain if coupling capacitors are larger
enough;
o Cannot amplify DC and low frequency signals;
o Difficult implementation on IC.
 • Transformer coupling:

o Independent DC operating point;

o Can achieve maximal power by impedance match;
o Cannot amplify DC and low frequency signals;
o Difficult implementation on IC.
• Direct coupling:

o DC operating point not independent;

o Can amplify both DC and AC signals;
o Easy implementation on IC.

XI. Differential Amplifier

Differential amplifier can amplify a small difference between two

voltages and . Differential amplification has many applications, such as the

first stage of operational amplifiers (Op-amps).

Assume the two transistors and in the circuit are identical with the same
properties, and their emitters are connected to a current source with constant

current so that , i.e., if increases, will decrease, and vice

versa. Consider the following three cases:

• When the two input voltages are the same , then

and the output voltage is , which is

treated as a reference level corresponding to .

• If , the following changes happen:

• If , the following changes happen:

The output voltage can be further amplified to indicate the difference and its

polarity between the two input voltages and .

The current source shared by the two transistors is also shown in the figure. Due

to the fact that the forward biased diodes have fixed voltage , the
base voltage of the transistor is also fixed at , so is the current , i.e., the
circuit can be used as a constant current source.

XII. Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor
Field-Effect Transistors
A metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) has three
terminals, source, gate, and drain. Both the source S and drain D are n-type and
the substrate between them is p-type. The gate and the p-type substrate is

insulated by a thin layer of . Due to this insulation, there is no gate current

to either the source or drain.
Different types of MOSFET

The behavior of an n-channel field effect transistor can be described by ,

, and , as shown by the plots below.

The qualitative behavior of an n-channel field effect transistor can be described
as:

The MOSFET can therefore be considered as a voltage controlled switch. When

sufficient voltage is applied between gate and source, the positive potential
at the gate will induce enough electrons from the p-type substrate to form an

electronic channel between source and drain, and a current between source
and drain is formed, as shown below.
More accurately, the behavior of a MOSFET can be described as a function

, as plotted below:

This function can be divided into three different (piece-wise linear) regions:

• Cutoff region: When , no current flows through S and D, due

to the two pn-junctions, i.e. , independent of .

• Triode region: When and , some electrons

in the p-type substrate (minority carriers) are pulled toward the gate to
form a inversion layer close to the gate to form an n-type channel with
certain resistance between S and D.

The current increases roportionally to , with a linear coefficient

(Ohm's law), and also unlinearly as increases

(to pull more electrons toward the gate to enhance the n-channel).

• Saturation region: When and further increases, the

voltage between gate and e-channel close to drain

becomes small and the e-channel close to drain narrows. In particular,

when , the voltage between gate and drain is:

the e-channel at the D end is nearly closed or pinch-off), is saturated

and keeps a constant value independent of . Now is only

affected nonlinearly by .
In summary, the current is controlled by both voltages and , as

shown in the plots above. Specifically, for all , the current

is related to by:

The triode region and the saturation region is separated by the curve

, or . In terms of the current from drain to

source, this curve can also be represented by

Example 1: Assume .

• when , the MOSFET is in cutoff region with

independent of .

• when and , the

MOSFET is in linear or triode region with affected by both and

• when , the MOSFET is in saturation region with

determined only by .

Example 2: Assume and , and both MOSFETs in the

following circuit are in the saturation region. Find output voltage .
Since both MOSFETs are in saturation region with the same which is

determined only by but independent of , their must be the same.

The upper MOSFET must have the same as the lower one , i.e.,
the output voltage has to be .

Comparison between BJT and FET

• BJT has a low input resistance . But as MOSFET's gate is insulated

from the channel ( ), it draws virtually no input current and

therefore its input resistance is infinity in theory.

• BJT is current ( or ) controlled, but MOSFET is voltage ( )

controlled. Consequently, the power consumption of MOSFETs is lower
than BJTs.
• MOSFETs are easy to fabricate in large scale and have higher element
density than BJTs.
• MOSFETs have thin insulation layer which is more prone to statics and
requires special protection.
• BJTs have higher cutoff frequency and higher maximum current than
MOSFETs.
• MOSFETs are much more widely used (especially in computers and
digital systems) than BJTs.

XIII. MOSFET amplifier

Assumw in the circuit above and , then
the MOSFET is in saturation region and

The transfer function of the circuit is

It can be seen that when and , the transistor is in
saturation mode the slope of the curve (red) indecates the ratio between input

and output .

Assume , , , , then we
have

This nonlinear equation can be represented by the table below:

0 1 1.4 1.5 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.32 2.35 2.4

10 10 9.2 8.8 6.8 6.0 5.0 4.0 2.8 1.6 1.3 0.9 0.0

The voltage gain of the circuit is defined as:

Note that the output voltage is out of phase with the input voltage.

In particular, when the input increases from to , the output

decreases from to , with the gain of .

Also when the input increases from to , the output

decreases from to , with a gain of .

In general, we see that

• When , the transistor is in saturation mode, the

circuit behaves as a voltage amplifier with a gain greater than one.
• The voltage gain is indicated as the slope of the tangent of the curve (red)

which is a function of .
 • When or , the transistor is in either cutoff or
triode region with no amplification capability.

Consider a MOSFED circuit with , , ,

and a sinusoidal input that varies between

1.4V and 1.6V. The output voltage can be found as:

In particular, corresponding to , the output voltage

and the current are, respectively, , and

, as shown in the figure below:

Biasing: In the example above, the DC offset of the input is at 1.5V, so that the
transistor is working in the saturation region when the magnitude of the AC input
is limited. However, if this offset is either too high or too low, the gate voltage
may go beyond the saturation region to enter either the triode or the cutoff
region. In either case, the output voltage will be severely distorted, as shown
below:

It is therefore clear that the DC offset or biasing gate voltage has to be properly
selected and setup to make sure the dynamic range of the input signal is within
the saturation region.

Method 1: One way to provide the desired DC offset is to use two resistors

and that form a voltage divider, as shown in the figure below (a). As the gate
of the transistor does not draw any current, the DC offset voltage will be simply:

The input AC signal through the input capacitor is then superimposed on this DC
offset.
Method 2: Another way to set up the bias is the circuit shown in (b) above.

Assume , , , , and

. The bias voltage can be found to be ,

and the voltage between gate and source is . The output

voltage is

When , .

To determine the dynamic range of the input , recall the conditions for the
transistor to be in saturation region:

• To avoid cutoff region: . For this particular circuit,

Solving this we get with corresponding output .

 • To avoid triode region: . For this particular circuit,

that is

or

Solving this for we get , with corresponding output

Therefore the overall dynamic range for the input is

with the corresponding output range

and the overall voltage gain is about . Note that the output voltage is in
phase with the input voltage.

Source Follower: If the output is taken from the source, instead of the drain of
the transistor, the circuit is called a source follower.

Assume , and . To find the input and

output voltages and the gain of the circuit, consider the current :

Plugging in the given values, we get

If , this equation becomes:

which can be solved to get or . We take the smaller

voltage in order for the transistor to be outside the cutoff region:
Similarly, if , the equation becomes:

and we get . The voltage gain of the source follower is

XIV. Small Signal Analysis
To maximize the dynamic range for the input AC signal, the DC operation point in

terms of the DC variables needs to be set around the middle

point of the saturation region. If the AC signal around the DC operation point is
small enough, the behavior of the circuit can be linearized (first term of Taylor
expansion of the nonlinear relationship) to simplify the analysis.

Specifically, the nonlinear relationship between and can be linearized

around the DC operation point for small changes:

Here , called incremental transconductance, is the ratio between small

change in and the small change in .

XV. Feed back

XVI. Op Amp

We can analyse the effect of any supply movement by moving to an ac

equivalent circuit in the usual way:
The Thevenin voltage in this case is the sum of v sub 1 and v sub 2. The effect of
any variation in the supply is shown as v sub ee.

Discussion of "ideal" Op-amp characteristics. Such a device would have an

infinite input impedance together with ZERO output impedance and an INFINITE
"open loop" gain. Some of these 'dreams' can be approached in practice - but
never all together! However as we shall see later on when we look hard at the
effects of feedback in real circuits we will find that performance can become in
reality so close to perfection as to be irrelevant.
Then a realistic op-amp - the 741.

Notice here that the input differential impedance is specified at 2 Megohms - and
with feedback we will find that is easy to increase that by a thousand times! The
"open loop gain" is specified to be a figure of 100,000 to 200,000 and is carefully
shown in this sketch as a voltage source (to earth) which applies this
amplification figure to the differential voltage which has been applied to the + and
- inputs. This figure also shows the 'internal' output resistance of 75 ohms which
is specified for the 741 - and again this can be made to approach the ideal zero
value when feedback is applied.

A range of op-amp abilities:

Before the end of this lecture every aspect of this Table should be clearly
explained but it is worth noting the huge range of abilities which is available.

With such a huge open loop gain there are very limited applications of op-amps
in the open loop configuration because as can be seen from the following an
input as small as 0.15 millivolts causes the output to saturate at the positive or
negative rail:

In the lab you will attempt to measure this open loop gain and you will find that it
is not easy! In most applications we make use of negative feedback to "damp
down" the typical 100,000 + open loop voltage gain.
There are four basic feedback possibilities:

We start looking at op-amp circuits with the most important one which is the non-
inverting amplifier with voltage feedback:
The open loop gain always applies to the differential input signal so that:

We then evaluate the input impedance with feedback applied:

And then of course the output impedance with feedback applied:
It is worth commenting and emphasising that we have not yet applied a load to
this non-inverting amplifier - when we do so it obviously takes the following
shape:

The simplest very useful circuit which arises from the analysis of this circuit is the
"voltage follower" which has amazingly useful properties.
Upon substitution you will find that this circuit has a voltage gain of unity , an
absolutely enormous input impdance (resistance!) and extremely close to zero
output impedance. It provides an extremely useful 'buffer' stage.

The following sketch shows the non-inverting amplifier with current feedback:

This looks to be exactly the same as the previous voltage feedback case but the
following sketch shows that the output load resistor is in fact an integral part of
the circuit:
This circuit is really just included here for completeness - you can see that the
load is "up in the air". For general use we would really prefer an output which is
referenced to ground and to achieve this the remainder of this circuit has to be
"up in the air".

Then we have an inverting amplifier with voltage feedback:

Analysing currents i1 = (Vin - VN)/R1 must equal minus the current if which
equals (Vout - VN)/RF. The inverting input is a virtual earth so that the inverting
gain is simply the ratio of the feedback resistance to the input resistance R1.
Also because of the virtual earth the input impedance (with feedback) is simply
equal to R1.

Have a go at developing the output impedance with feedback in this case

yourselves.

And this is the inverting amplifier with current feedback:

A very common usage for this configuration is to place something like a 1 mA

current meter directly in the lead at the output of the op-amp and use it to
measure microamps at the input.
A frequency response curve shows that the various op-amp designs perform
superbly right down to DC because they are inherently DC coupled.

There are however difficulties at the high frequency end where the following
sketch illustrates three single lags operating in series (which could simply be
three op-amp circuits in series):
We need to analyse the phase lag through each simple lag (i.e. simple low pass
filter). The following sketch is a repeat of the diagram from Lecture 4 and we
recognise the lowpass form because at high frequencies the capacitor becomes
a short circuit effectively and no signal gets through. To analyse this we simply
treat it as a voltage divider:
Up to now we have just been interested in the shape of the 'magnitude'
characteristic but here we need to understand what happens with the phase.

For one lowpass filter the maximum phase lag it can produce approaches 90
degrees at very high frequencies - far above the corner where the characteristic
'starts' its logarithmic fall of 6 dB per octave (ie per doubling in frequency) which
is the same thing as 20 dB per decade (ie per 10 times change in frequency!).
You can see that at the 'corner' frequency the phase lag is minus the inverse tan
of unity - which equates to -45 degrees.

Stability/oscillation issues: When you study the following graph you will note that
the total phase lag reaches a value of 180 degrees in the interval between 1 and
10 Megahertz. If for example you tried to design a feedback amplifier with a gain
of 100 it will have a bandwidth greater than 10 Megahertz and will definitely
oscillate because at the high frequency end the feedback becomes POSITIVE. A
simple fix in this case would be to design the circuit to have a gain well in excess
of 1000 and then the highest frequency will still be inside the 180 degree total
lag. Another 'fix' is to apply another single lag (low pass filter) with the response
shown here in blue which falls below unity gain (ie below 0 dB gain) before the
total lag reaches 180 degrees. As you discover in the laboratory this
compensation process is very severely applied to the 741 which starts to fall from
10 Hertz!
Addressing the effect of 'slew rate'. From the table of op-amps presented early in
this lecture you can see that the "slew rate" for the 741 is specified to be 0.5 volts
per microsecond. In the following sketch an input of 14 volts (peak) at 10
kilohertz is applied to a simple voltage following using a 741. It is obvious that the
output result is nothing like a sine wave. The reason for this is that the sine wave
needs to get from zero volts to the peak of 14 volts in 25 microseconds - that
corresponds to a slew rate of 0.56 volts/microsecond - which is beyond the ability
of the 741. The fix is simple - reduce the peak amplitude at this frequency or
decrease the frequency of operation.

Balancing the input bias with a non-inverting amplifier design - the issue

Suppose that you wanted to apply an ac input through a capacitor to a non-

inverting amplifier design as shown here. It is immediately clear that there is no
DC path to earth - a major problem until you provide the DC path!
Balancing the input bias with an inverting amplifier design - the issue

With the following non-inverting situation the inverting input will find a path to
earth through the feedback resistor and it is then important that the path to earth
for the non-inverting input be balanced to the same value otherwise there will be
an offset which will be amplified to be a potential problem at the output.

Table of Contents
Last Updated: April, 2005
Copyright © Godfrey Lucas

XVII. Oscilator
Prinsip Kerja Osilator memanfaatkanfeedback positif

•Pengelompokan
–Osilator RC
•WienBridge (sbg α)
•Bridged-T (sbg β)
•Twin-T (sbg β)
•Penggeser fasa
–OsilatorLC (rangkaian resonansi)
•Menggunakan rangkaian resonansi sebagai pembangkit gelombang
•Menggunakan penguat untuk mengatasi redaman oleh resistansi dalam
induktor dan konduktansi kapasitor

–Osilator Kristal
–Multivibrator Astabil

Wien Bridge–pada frekuensi osilasi teganganoutput vo

dan input V+ sefasa pada 0 derajat–sinyal akan berbentuk
segi empat dan frekuensi akan turun apabila penguatan
terlalu besar–perbandingan nilai kapasitor dan resistor
menentukan tingkat kestabilan frekuensi
•Osilator Penggeser Fasa–pada frekuensi osilasi
tegangan input dan output penguat berbeda fasa 180
derajat–perbedaan fasa diperoleh dari jaringan tangga RC
tiga tingkat–Menggunakan umpan balik tunggal–Frekuensi
resonansi 1/(2π(RC)0.5)
Osilator LC
–Osilator Colpitts
–Osilator Hartley
–Osilator Clapp

•Osilator Colpitt
•Generator Pulsa

–(rangkaian multivibrator
astabil)
–umumnya menggunakan rangkaian RC
sebagai penentu waktu
–rangkaian mutivibrator astabil dengan
transistor
–Rangakian multivibrator astabil dengan
rangkaian terintegrasi 555
•frekuensi osilasi 1.1/(RAC) dengan RA >>
RB

•Generator Gelombang Persegi Empat–menggunakan

rangkaianRC dan inverter CMOS–Menggunakan rangakian
RC dan inverter dengan Schmitt trigger–Menggunakan
rangkaian RC dengan D flipflop–kestabilan frekuensi
terhadap temperatur buruk karena tegangan threshold juga
merupakan fungsi suhu
•Pembentukan pulsa simetri
–dari pulsa asimetri menggunakan pencacah dua (misalnya
dengan T flipflop) dengan frekuensi hasil setengah kali
frekuensi inputnya

–dari gelombangsinusoidal menggunakan komparator,

batas ambang diatur sedemikian hingga output yang
diperoleh merupakan gembang persegi empat dengan duty
cycle 50%
•GeneratorGelombang segitiga
–rangkaian terdiri dari komparator dengan
histeresis dan rangkaian integrator
–rangkaianintegrator harus mempunyai
konstanta waktu yang lebih besar dari
frekuensi sinyal diinginkan
–Frekuensi sinyal output ditentukan oleh
rangkaian RC dan rangkaian histeresis

•Osilator Kristal

–menggunakan kristal sebagai elemen resonansi

–Faktor kualitas resonansi sangat tinggi > 104
–kestabilan frekuensi terhadap temperatur sangat baik
hingga 10ppm per derajat celcius
–respons frekuensi dan rangkaian ekivalen kristal:
•Ada dua frekuensi resonansi, seri (short)dan paralel (open)

•Osilator Kristal dengan inverter CMOS–duainverter

CMOS memberigain total 30 s.d. 1000–beda fasa rangkaian
penguat 0o–osilasi terjadi pada resonansi seri–buffer
digunakan untuk memperoleh gelombang persegi empat
•OsilatorPierce–menggunakan hanya satuinverter
CMOS–rangkaian umpan balik merupakan rangkaian π–
Beda fasa penguat dan rangkaian umpan balik 180o

•Osilator Pierce dengan

Transistor
–Menggunakan rangkaian mirip dengan
osilator Colpitt (pada frekuensi osilasi
kristal mendekati fungsi induktansi)
•Sumber Sinyal DC

–digunakan bila diperlukan sinyal DC dengan regulasi

yang lebih baik dari sumber daya
–kontrol tegangan dapat diperoleh dengan rangkaian
buffer dan pembagi tegangan, ketabilan tegangan
dapat diperoleh dengan zener

•Sumber Sinyal DC–tegangan presisi dapat diperoleh

dengan menggunakan rangkaian terintegrasi, kestabilan
hingga 10 ppm per derajat Celcius–Pengaturan tegangan
dapat dilakukan dengan potensiometer multiturn dengan
linearitas hingga 0.1% hingga dapat diperoleh tegangan
dengan akurasi 10 mV
•Rangkaian Terintegrasi Generator Fungsi
–berbagai rangkaian terintegrasi generator fungsi
dapat diperoleh dengan mudah, berikut ini
beberapa contohnya
•Sintesa DigitalGelombangSinusoidal–rangkaiandigital
berupa ring counter atau Johnson counter–rangkaianresistor
dirancang hingga memberikan langkah tegangan yang lebih dekat
dengan fungsi sinusoidal

–data dari rangkaiancounter dapat pula digantikan dengan data dari

memori yang lebih menyerupai sinusoidal dan rangkaian DAC
untuk mengubah data digital menjadi sinyal analognya–dalam
dunia komunikasi digital dikenal juga istilah DDS

XVII. Soal dan Pembahasan