Chapter 6 BJT Amplifiers

Objectives

Understand the concept of amplifiers

Identify and apply internal transistor parameters Understand and analyze common-emitter, common-base, and common-collector amplifiers Discuss multistage amplifiers Troubleshoot amplifier circuits

Introduction
One of the primary uses of a transistor is to amplify ac signals. This could be an audio signal or perhaps some high frequency radio signal. It has to be able to do this without distorting the original input.

Amplifier Operation
Recall from the previous chapter that the purpose of dc biasing was to establish the Q-point for operation. The collector curves and load lines help us to relate the Q-point and its proximity to cutoff and saturation. The Q-point is best established where the signal variations do not cause the transistor to go into saturation or cutoff. What we are most interested in is the ac signal itself. Since the dc part of the overall signal is filtered out in most cases, we can view a transistor circuit in terms of just its ac component.

Amplifier Operation
For the analysis of transistor circuits from both dc and ac perspectives, the ac subscripts are lower case and italicized. Instantaneous values use both italicized lower case letters and subscripts.

Amplifier Operation
The boundary between cutoff and saturation is called the linear region. A transistor which operates in the linear region is called a linear amplifier. Note that only the ac component reaches the load because of the capacitive coupling and that the output is 180 out of phase with input.

Graphical operation of the amplifier showing the variation of the base current, collector current, and collector-to-emitter voltage about their dc Q-point values. Ib and Ic are on different scales.

EX. 6-1

Transistor AC Equivalent Circuits r-Parameters

Transistor Equivalent Circuits

We can view transistor circuits by use of resistance or rparameters for better understanding. Since the base resistance, rb is small it normally is not considered and since the collector resistance, re is fairly high we consider it as an open. The emitter resistance, re is the main parameter that is viewed.

You can determine re from this simplified equation.

re = 25 mV/IE

Transistor Equivalent Circuits

The two graphs best illustrate the difference between DC and ac. The two only differ slightly.

Transistor Equivalent Circuits

Since r parameters are used throughout the rest of the textbook we will not go into deep discussion about h parameters. However, since some data sheets include or exclusively provide h parameters these formulas can be used to convert them to r parameters.

re = hre/hoe
rc = hre + 1/hoe rb = hie - hre/hoe(1+ hfe)

The Common-Emitter Amplifier

The common-emitter amplifier exhibits high voltage and current gain. The output signal is 180 out of phase with the input. Now lets use our dc and ac analysis methods to view this type of transistor circuit.

The Common Emitter Amplifier - DC Analysis

The dc component of the circuit sees only the part of the circuit that is within the boundaries of C1, C2, and C3 as the dc will not pass through these components. The equivalent circuit for dc analysis is shown. The methods for dc analysis are just are the same as dealing with a voltagedivider circuit.

Common Emitter Amplifier AC Equivalent Circuit

We can look at the input voltage in terms of the equivalent base circuit (ignore the other components from the previous diagram). Note the use of simple series-parallel analysis skills for determining Vin.

Common Emitter Amplifier - AC Equivalent Circuit

The ac equivalent circuit basically replaces the capacitors with shorts, being that ac passes through easily through them. The power supplies are also effectively shorts to ground for ac analysis.

Common Emitter Amplifier AC Equivalent Circuit

The input resistance as seen by the input voltage can be illustrated by the r parameter equivalent circuit. The simplified formula below is used.

Rin(base) = acre
The output resistance is for all practical purposes the value of RC.

EX. 6-3

Common Emitter Amplifier AC Equivalent Circuit

Voltage gain can be easily determined by dividing the ac output voltage by the ac input voltage.
Av = Vout/Vin = Vc/Vb Voltage gain can also be determined by the simplified formula below.

Av = RC/re

Base circuit attenuation and overall gain.

Common Emitter Amplifier AC Equivalent Circuit

Taking the attenuation from the ac supply internal resistance and input resistance into consideration is included in the overall gain. Av = (Vb/Vs)Av or

Av = Rin(total)/Rs + Rin(total)

EX. 6-4

The Common-Emitter Amplifier

The emitter bypass capacitor helps increase the gain by allowing the ac signal to pass more easily. The XC(bypass) should be about ten times less than RE.

A common-emitter amplifier with an ac (capacitively) coupled load.

The Common-Emitter Amplifier

The bypass capacitor makes the gain unstable since transistor amplifier becomes more dependent on IE. This effect can be swamped or somewhat alleviated by adding another emitter resistor(RE1).

Stability of Voltage Gain

A swamped amplifier uses a partially bypassed emitter resistance to minimize the affect of on the gain in order to achieve gain stability.

EX. 6-7

EX. 6-8

DC Equivalent Circuit

AC Equivalent Circuit

Voltages for EX. 6-8

Current Gain

The Common-Collector Amplifier

The common-collector amplifier is usually referred to as the emitter follower because there is no phase inversion or voltage gain. The output is taken from the emitter. The commoncollector amplifiers main advantages are its high current gain and high input resistance.

The Common-Collector Amplifier

Because of its high input resistance the commoncollector amplifier used as a buffer to reduce the loading effect of low impedance loads. The input resistance can be determined by the simplified formula below.

Rin(base) ac(re + Re)

The Common-Collector Amplifier

The output resistance is very low. This makes it useful for driving low impedance loads. The current gain(Ai) is approximately ac.
The voltage gain is approximately 1.

The power gain is approximately equal to the current gain(Ai).

EX. 6-9

The Common-Collector Amplifier

The darlington pair is used to boost the input impedance to reduce loading of high output impedance circuits. The collectors are joined together and the emitter of the input transistor is connected to the base of the output transistor. The input impedance can be determined the formula below.

Rin = ac1ac2Re

EX. 6-10

The Common-Base Amplifier

The common-base amplifier has high voltage gain with a current gain no higher than 1. It has a low input resistance making it ideal for low impedance input sources. The ac signal is applied to the emitter and the output is taken from the collector.

The Common-Base Amplifier

The common-base voltage gain(Av) is approximately equal to Rc/re The current gain is approximately 1. The power gain is approximately equal to the voltage gain. The input resistance is approximately equal to re. The output resistance is approximately equal to RC.

EX. 6-11

Multistage Amplifiers
Two or more amplifiers can be connected to increase the gain of an ac signal. The overall gain can be calculated by simply multiplying each gain together.

Av = Av1Av2Av3

Multistage Amplifiers
Gain can be expressed in decibels(dB). The formula below can be used to express gain in decibels.

A v(dB) = 20logAv
Each stages gain can now can be simply added together for the total.

Multistage Amplifiers
The capacitive coupling keeps dc bias voltages separate but allows the ac to pass through to the next stage.
The output of stage 1 is loaded by input of stage 2. This lowers the gain of stage 1. This ac equivalent circuit helps give a better understanding how loading can effect gain.

AC equivalent of first stage

Multistage Amplifiers
Direct coupling between stage improves low frequency gain. The disadvantage is that small changes in dc bias from temperature changes or supply variations becomes more pronounced.

Summary
Most transistors amplifiers are designed to operate in the linear region. Transistor circuits can be view in terms of its ac equivalent for better understanding.

The common-emitter amplifier has high voltage and current gain.

The common-collector has a high current gain and voltage gain of 1. It has a high input impedance and low output impedance.

Summary
The common-base has a high voltage gain and a current gain of 1. It has a low input impedance and high output impedance Multistage amplifiers are amplifier circuits cascaded to increased gain. We can express gain in decibels (dB). Troubleshooting techniques used for individual transistor circuits can be applied to multistage amplifiers as well.

Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting techniques for transistor amplifiers is similar to techniques covered in Chapter 2. Usage of knowledge of how an amplifier works, symptoms, and signal tracing are all valuable parts of troubleshooting. Needless to say experience is an excellent teacher but having a clear understanding of how these circuits work makes the troubleshooting process more efficient and understandable.

Troubleshooting
The following slide is a diagram for a two stage commonemitter amplifier with correct voltages at various points.

Utilize your knowledge of transistor amplifiers and troubleshooting techniques and imagine what the effects would be with various faulty componentsfor example, open resistors, shorted transistor junctions or capacitors. More importantly, how would the output be affected by these faults? In troubleshooting it is most important to understand the operation of a circuit.
What faults could cause low or no output?

What faults could cause a distorted output signal?

Troubleshooting