Nyquist criterion

 Nyquist stability criterion (or Nyquist criteria) is a graphical technique

used in control engineering for determining the stability of a dynamical
system
 The Nyquist criterion states that an amplifier is stable if the
Nyquist plot do not encloses the -1 point and if it encloses the -1
point then it is unstable.
 It is used to check the stability of a feedback configuration
 Using Nyquist criterion, we draw a graph of BA and phase shift as
a function of frequency on a complex plane.
 If the plot encloses the -1 point then the amplifier is unstable
 The reason is that for a value of BA=-1 and phase shift equal to
180º,
𝐴 𝐴
Af=1+𝛽𝐴=1−1=∞
 This means that the feedback gain will become very large and the
180º phase will make it inphase with the input making the input
signal very large thus producing oscillations making the
configuration unstable.
Gain and Phase margin:
If Aβ is less than unity at the high frequencies where phase shift reaches
180°, the high-frequency phase-shifted signals will gradually fade away
instead of progressively building up into major oscillations.

loop gain magnitudes slightly less than unity at f180 will lead to marginal
stability which can actually be much worse than flagrant instability.
Phase margin (PM) is defined as the angle of 180° minus the magnitude of the angle
at which the value 0 bA 0 is unity (0 dB).

Gain margin is the difference (expressed as a positive dB value) between 0 dB

and |Aβ| at f180. More gain margin means more stability.
Oscillators:

positive feedback can lead to oscillations: 1) apply an input signal 2) amplify

the input signal 3) feed the amplified output back and add it to the input 4)
the input is now larger, and this larger input is amplified 5) the amplified
output is again fed back and added to the input 6) the input is larger again,
gets amplified again, receives positive feedback again, and so on.

Similarly if BA=1 and the phase shift is equal to 180º, the configuration will act
as an oscillator as well.

Also an oscillator is a circuit which produces a continuous, repeated,

alternating waveform without any input.

If the output of an oscillator is sine wave then it is called a sinewave oscillator.

If the output drops quickly to one voltage level and after some time to another
voltage level then it is called pulse or square wave oscillator.

Let us consider an oscillator circuit. We apply an input signal Vi, the output
will be Vo=AVi and Vf will be equal to BAVi. Then we remove the input signal.
We have three cases.

1. If BA>1 then Vf will be a small value which will be applied to the input
and after each cycle this value will keep on deceasing and will
eventually die out.
2. If Ba<1, then Vf will be a large value and continue to increase after each
cycle producing distortions.
3. If BA=1, then Vf will be equal to Vi and thus same input will be applied
repeatedly to the input producing a self-sustained oscillatory circuit.
This is known as Batrkhausan criterion.

The input singal is usually noise voltage which is always present.

Phase Shift Oscillator:

There are three RC circuits in phase shift oscillator.

We want to produce a phase shift of 180º,to obtain that we want each RC
circuit to produce a phase shift of 60º but this not possible as each RC circuit
acts a load for the previous one but still the overall phase is 180º which we are
interested in.

If we want an exact phase shift of 60º for each RC circuit we should use
emitter follower stages to prevent loading effect.

An emitter follower circuit prevents any loading effect due to its high input
and low output impedances.

FET Phase Shift Oscillator: