BECE206L - Analog Circuits

Dr. Sangeetha R.G

Professor
School of Electronics Engineering (SENSE)

1
Module I DC and AC analysis of
amplifiers (9)

BJT Circuits: DC biasing, AC coupling and small-signal

analysis of amplifiers, Frequency response of a CE
amplifier, the three frequency bands, Unity gain
frequency, Miller Capacitance, Multistage amplifiers.
MOSFET Circuits: DC biasing, AC coupling and small-
signal analysis of amplifiers, Frequency response of a
CS amplifier, Unity gain frequency, Miller Capacitance,
Multistage amplifiers.

2
DC ANALYSIS OF TRANSISTOR CIRCUITS

Objective: Understand and become familiar with the dc

analysis and design techniques of bipolar transistor
circuits.
 Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT)
• The bipolar junction transistor (BJT) has three separately doped
regions and contains two pn junctions. A single pn junction has two
modes of operation—forward bias and reverse bias. The bipolar
transistor, with two pn junctions, therefore has four possible modes
of operation, depending on the bias condition of each pn junction.
– Active
– Saturation
– Cutoff
– Reverse Active

Simple geometry of bipolar transistors: (a) npn and (b) pnp

 Common-Emitter Circuit

(a) Common-emitter circuit with npn transistor and (b) dc equivalent

circuit. Transistor equivalent circuit is shown within the dotted lines
The base current

VBB > VBE (on), which means that IB > 0. When VBB < VBE (on), the
transistor is cut off and IB = 0.

In the collector–emitter portion of the circuit

The power dissipated in the transistor is given by

In most cases, IC IB and VCE > VBE (on) so that a good first
approximation of the power dissipated is given as
Problem 1 : Calculate the base, collector, and emitter currents
and the C–E voltage for a common-emitter circuit. Calculate the
transistor power dissipation. = 200
Solution
Load Line and Modes of Operation
The input load line is obtained from Kirchhoff’s
voltage law equation around the B–E loop

(a) Base–emitter junction

piecewise linear i–v
characteristics and the input load
 The load line is found by writing Kirchhoff’s
voltage law equation around the C–E loop

The two end points of the load

line are found by setting IC = 0,
(b) common-emitter transistor characteristics yielding VCE = VCC = 10 V, and
and the collector–emitter load line showing the by setting VCE = 0, yielding IC
Q-point for the circuit = VCC/RC = 5 mA.
Bias conditions for the four modes of operation
of an npn transistor
• If vBE > 0 (forward-biased
junction) and vBC < 0 (reverse
biased junction), the transistor is
biased in the forward-active mode.
• If both junctions are zero or
reverse biased, the transistor is in
cutoff.
• If both junctions are forward
biased, the transistor is in
saturation.
• If the B–E junction is reverse
biased and the B–C junction is
forward biased, the transistor is in
the inverse-active mode.
Problem:2 Calculate the characteristics of a circuit containing an
emitter resistor. For the circuit shown in Figure 5.30(a), let
VBE(on) = 0.7 V and = 75. Note that the circuit has both positive
and negative power supply voltages.
The collector and emitter currents are

The collector–emitter voltage is

The relationship between the collector

and emitter currents
 Load line and Q-point for the circuit

Since the C–E voltage is 1.59 V, VCE > VBE (on) and the transistor is biased in
the forward-active mode
 BASIC TRANSISTOR APPLICATIONS

Objective: Examine three applications of bipolar transistor circuits: a switch

circuit, digital logic circuit, and an amplifier circuit.

If < (on), then = = 0 and the transistor is

cut off. Since = 0, the voltage drop across
the load is zero, so the output voltage is =

An npn bipolar inverter circuit

used as a switch
 Digital Logic
• If the input is approximately zero volts, the transistor is cut off and the
output is high and equal to. If, on the other hand, the input is high and
equal to VCC, the transistor can be driven into saturation, in which case the
output is low and equal to (sat).

NOR logic gate

Inverter circuit
BJT BIASING
 BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR BIASING
There is a single dc power supply, and the quiescent base current is established
through the resistor . The coupling capacitoracts as an open circuit to dc,
isolating the signal source from the dc base current. If the frequency of the
input signal is large enough and is large enough, the signal can be coupled
through to the base with little attenuation.

Common-emitter circuit with a single bias DC equivalent circuit

resistor in the base
Problem: Design a circuit with a single-base resistor to
meet a set of specifications.
Specifications: The circuit configuration to be designed is shown in Figure.
The circuit is to be biased with = +12 V. The transistor quiescent values are to
be = 1 mA and = 6 V.

The collector resistor is found from

The base current is

The base resistor is determined to be

 Transistor characteristics, load line, and Q-
point for this set of conditions

Transistor characteristics and load line for the load line and changes in the Q-point for 50,
circuit 100, and 150.
Trade-offs: In this example, we will assume that the resistor values are fixed
and will investigate the effects of the variation in transistor current gain .

The base current is given by

The base current for this circuit configuration is independent of the transistor
current gain.

The collector current is

and the load line is found from

In this circuit configuration with a

single base resistor, the Q-point is not
stabilized against variations in β; as
β changes, the Q-point varies
significantly.
 Voltage Divider Biasing and Bias Stability

The single bias resistor in the previous circuit is replaced by a pair of resistors
and , and an emitter resistor is added. The ac signal is still coupled to the base
of the transistor through the coupling capacitor .

A common-emitter circuit with an emitter

dc circuit with a Thevenin equivalent base
resistor and voltage divider bias
circuit
circuit in the base
Applying Kirchhoff’s law around the B–E loop, we obtain

If the transistor is biased in the forward-active mode, then

The base current

The collector current is then

Problem: Analyze a circuit using a voltage divider bias circuit, and determine
the change in the Q-point with a variation in when the circuit contains an
emitter resistor. For the circuit given in Figure, let = 56 k, = 12.2 k, = 2 k, =
0.4 k, = 10 V, (on) = 0.7 V, and = 100

Using the Thevenin equivalent circuit

Writing the Kirchhoff voltage law equation around the B–E loop,
 The collector current is

The emitter current is

The quiescent C–E voltage is then

These results show that the transistor is biased in the active region.
If the current gain of the transistor were to decrease to = 50 or increase to
= 150, we obtain the following results:
 Load lines and Q-point values

The voltage divider circuit of and can bias the transistor in its active region
using resistor values in the low kilo-ohm range. In contrast, single resistor
biasing requires a resistor in the mega-ohm range. In addition, the change in
and with a change in has been substantially reduced compared to the change
shown in Figure. Including an emitter resistor RE has tended to stabilize the
Q-point. This means that including the emitter resistor helps to stabilize the Q-
point with respect to variations in .
Problem: Design a bias-stable pnp transistor circuit to meet a set of
specifications

Assume transistor parameters of = 80 and (on) = 0.7 V. Standard

resistor values are to be used in the final design.
 The AC Equivalent Circuit

Common-emitter transistor characteristics, dc

A common-emitter circuit load line, and sinusoidal variation in base
with a time-varying signal source in current, collector current, and collector–emitter
series with the base dc source voltage Figure
From the concept of small signal, all the time-varying signals shown in Figure. will be
linearly related and are superimposed on dc values

If the signal source, , is zero, then the base-emitter loop equation is

Taking into account the time-varying signals, we find the base–emitter loop
equation is
Rearranging terms, we find

which is the base-emitter loop equation with all dc term effectively set equal to zero.

The Collector–Emitter Loop: Again, if the signal source, vs , is zero, then the
collector-emitter loop equation is

Taking into account the time-varying signals, the collector-emitter loop equation
becomes

Rearranging terms, we find

which is the collector–emitter loop equation with all dc

terms set equal to zero.
AC equivalent circuits

The ac equivalent circuit of the common-

emitter circuit
 Small-Signal Hybrid- Equivalent
Circuit of the Bipolar Transistor
The base current versus base–emitter voltage
characteristic, with small time-varying signals
superimposed at the Q-point. Since the
sinusoidal signals are small, we can treat the
slope at the Q-point as a constant, which has
units of conductance. The inverse of this
conductance is the small-signal resistance
defined as . We can then relate the small-signal
The BJT as a small-
input base current to the small-signal input
signal, two-port
voltage by
network
where is equal to the slope of the curve

The resistance is called the diffusion resistance or base–emitter input resistance.

We see that is a function of the Q-point parameters.
 Output Collector–Emitter Port
If we initially consider the case in which the output collector current is
independent of the collector–emitter voltage, then the collector current is a
function only of the base–emitter voltage,
 The term evaluated at the Q-point is just the quiescent collector current.
The term is a conductance. Since this conductance relates a current in the
collector to a voltage in the B–E circuit, the parameter is called a
transconductance
and is written

The small-signal transconductance is also a function of the Q-point parameters and

is directly proportional to the dc bias current. The variation of transconductance with
quiescent collector current will prove to be useful in amplifier design.
 Small-signal hybrid- equivalent circuit

A simplified small-signal hybrid- equivalent

circuit for the npn transistor.
Alternative Form of Equivalent Circuit

BJT small-signal equivalent circuit using

the common-emitter current gain.
Common-Emitter Current Gain The dependent current source is then
given by .
The dependent current flows through ,
producing a negative collector–emitter
voltage, or
The small-signal voltage gain, Av = Vo/Vs ,
of the circuit is defined as the ratio of output
signal voltage to input signal voltage.
from the input portion of the circuit

The small-signal voltage gain is then

Problem: Calculate the small-signal voltage gain of the bipolar
transistor circuit shown in Figure

DC Solution: We first do the dc analysis to find the Q-point values. We obtain

AC Solution: The small-signal hybrid- parameters are

The small-signal voltage gain is determined using the small-signal equivalent circuit

Comment: We see that the magnitude of the sinusoidal output voltage is 11.4
times the magnitude of the sinusoidal input voltage.
Input and Output Resistance

From the hybrid- equivalent circuit in Figure 6.13(a), the input resistance looking into
the base terminal of the transistor, denoted by .
To find the output resistance, set all independent sources equal to zero. So, in Figure,
we set = 0 which implies that = 0. A zero-valued current source means an open
circuit. The output resistance looking back into the collector terminal of the
transistor, denoted by , is = .

These two parameters affect the loading characteristics of the amplifier.

Basic Common-Emitter Amplifier Circuit

A common-emitter circuit with a voltage-divider biasing

circuit and a coupling capacitor
If the signal source is a sinusoidal voltage at frequency f, then the magnitude of the
capacitor impedance is . For example, assume that = 10 μF and f = 2 kHz. The
magnitude of the capacitor impedance is then

The magnitude of this impedance is in general much less than the Thevenin resistance
at the capacitor terminals, which in this case is. We can therefore assume that the
capacitor is essentially a short circuit to signals with frequencies greater than 2 kHz.

The small-signal equivalent circuit, assuming

the coupling capacitor is a short circuit
The output voltage is

The control voltage is found to be

The small-signal voltage gain is

The voltage across provides the base–emitter voltage to bias the transistor in the
forward-active region. However, a slight variation in the resistor value or a slight
variation in the transistor characteristics may cause the transistor to be biased in cutoff
or saturation.
 Circuit with Emitter Resistor
The Q-point was stabilized against variations in if an emitter resistor were included in
the circuit

voltage gain of a circuit with will be less dependent on the transistor current gain

An npn common-emitter circuit with an emitter resistor, a voltage-divider

biasing circuit, and a coupling capacitor
The small-signal equivalent circuit of the circuit
The ac output voltage is

The resistance is the input resistance looking into the base of the transistor.

In the common-emitter configuration that includes an emitter resistance, the

small-signal input resistance looking into the base of the transistor is plus the
emitter resistance multiplied by the factor (1 + ). This effect is called the resistance
reflection rule.

The input resistance to the amplifier is now

We can again relate to through a voltage-divider equation as

The small-signal voltage gain is

if and if , then the small signal voltage gain is approximately

 Problem: Determine the small-signal voltage gain and input
resistance of a common-emitter circuit with an emitter resistor.
The transistor parameters are: = 100, = 0.7 V, and = ∞

DC Solution: From a dc analysis of the circuit,

we can determine that = 2.16 mA and = 4.81
V, which shows that the transistor is biased in
the forward-active mode.
AC Solution: The small-signal hybrid- parameters are determined to be
The Early voltage is a parameter describing the variation of the transistor collector
in the active or the saturation region of operation with the VCE
Frequency response
Series coupling capacitor
Parallel Load capacitor
Applying KCL,
Bode plot
Series and parallel capacitor
 FREQUENCY RESPONSE: TRANSISTOR
AMPLIFIERS WITH CIRCUIT CAPACITORS

Coupling Capacitor Effects

Common-emitter circuit with small-signal

coupling capacitor equivalent circuit
Current–Voltage Analysis: The input current can be written as

To determine the input resistance to the base of the transistor, we multiplied the
emitter resistance by the factor (1 + ).

Using a current divider, we determine the base current to be

The output voltage is given by

The small-signal voltage gain is

The corner frequency is
Problem: Calculate the corner frequency and maximum gain of a bipolar common
emitter circuit with a coupling capacitor.

The parameters are: = 51.2 k, = 9.6 k, = 2 k,

= 0.4 k, = 0.1 k, = 1 μF, and = 10 V. The
transistor parameters are: (on) = 0.7 V, = 100,
and = ∞.

From a dc analysis, the quiescent collector current is = 1.81 mA. The small-signal
parameters are= 69.6 mA/V and = 1.44 k.
Problem: Calculate the corner frequency and maximum gain of a bipolar common
emitter circuit with a coupling capacitor.

The parameters are: = 51.2 k, = 9.6 k, = 2 k,

= 0.4 k, = 0.1 k, = 1 μF, and = 10 V. The
transistor parameters are: (on) = 0.7 V, = 100,
and = ∞.

From a dc analysis, the quiescent collector current is = 1.81 mA. The small-signal
parameters are= 69.6 mA/V and = 1.44 k.
 Coupling and Load Capacitors

Circuit with both a coupling small-signal

and a load capacitor equivalent circuit
 The lower corner frequencyis given by

where is the time constant associated with the coupling capacitor , and the
upper corner frequency is given by

where is the time constant associated with the coupling capacitor

The related time constant is

The time constant related to is

The magnitude of the midband gain as

Bypass Capacitor Effects
Using the impedance reflection rule, the small-signal input current is

The total impedance in the emitter is multiplied by the factor (1 + ). The control
voltage is

and the output voltage is

the small-signal voltage gain

Expanding the parallel combination of and and rearranging terms, we find

It can be written in terms of time constants as

circuit
the corner frequency due to is

the corner frequency due to is

Bode plot of the voltage gain magnitude for the

circuit with an emitter bypass capacitor
Expanded Hybrid-π Equivalent Circuit
Problem:1
 Miller Effect and Miller Capacitance
The Miller effect, or feedback effect, is a
multiplication effect of Cμ in circuit
applications.
Two-terminal network of capacitor Cμ
 Thevenin equivalent Norton equivalent

Small-signal equivalent circuit, including the two-port equivalent model

of capictor Cμ
 Case: 1 simplifying approximations.

Case: 2
Small-signal equivalent circuit, including
approximations