Analog & Digital Electronics

Course No: PH-218 Lec-13: Multistage Amplifiers

Course Instructors:

Dr. A. P. VAJPEYI

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India

Multistage Amplifier:
Characteristic Input impedance Output impedance Phase Angle Voltage Gain Current Gain Power Gain Common Base Low Very High 0o High Low Low Common Emitter Medium High 180o Medium Medium Very High Common Collector High Low 0o Low High Medium

Common emitter amplifier is most popular BJT amplifier due to high power gain. Ideal amplifier should have high input impedance, low output impedance, high voltage and current gain. Single Stage amplifier is not able to provide enough gain, power and fullfill all the requirement of an ideal amplifier --------- Need Multistage

amplifier

Multistage Amplifier: Characteristics

Multistage Amplifiers
Practical amplifiers usually consist of a number of stages connected in cascade. The first (input) stage is usually required to provide a high input resistance a high common-mode rejection for a differential amplifier Middle stages are to provide majority of voltage gain conversion of the signal from differential mode to single-end mode shifting of the dc level of the signal The last (output) stage is to provide a low output resistance in order to avoid loss of gain and provide the current required by the load (power amplifiers)

Multistage Amplifier: Gain Calculation Procedure:

AvT = Av1 Av 2 Av 3 K AiT = Ai1 Ai 2 Ai 3 K

ApT = AvT AiT

1. Do dc analysis 2. Find re for each stage 3. Find rC for each stage 4. Using re and rC to find Av for each stage

Input impedance of next stage is the load of current stage.

(Zin of next stage is RL of current stage)

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Multistage Amplifiers: Frequency Response

R Vo = ( )Vin R jX c Av = Vout R = Vin R j (1 / C )

1 Av = 1 j (1 / 2fCR )
1 Av = 1 j ( f1 / f ) f1 = 1 / 2RC

Av =

1 1 + ( f1 / f ) 2

tan 1 ( f1 / f )

Multistage Amplifiers: Low cut off Frequency

If n identical stages are connected together then overall voltage gain at lower frequency is given by: Av-low = Av1-low Av2-low Av3-low . Avn-low = (Av-low)n where n is the number of cascaded stages. Since Av1-low = Av2-low ..= Avn-low

Avlow A vmid

Avlow = A overall vmid

1 = (1 j ( f / f )n 1

For lower cutoff frequency : Av-low / Av-mid)overall = 1/2

1 = 2 n 2 [1 + ( f1 / f clow ) ]

f clow =

f1 2 1
1 n

Multistage Amplifiers: High Cutoff Frequency

jX c Vo = ( )Vin R jX c
Vout 1 Av = = Vin 1 + j ( RC )

1 1 1 1 A = tan ( f / f2 ) v Av = = 2 1+ ( f / f2 ) 1 + j (2fCR ) 1 + j ( f / f 2 )
where

f 2 = 1 / 2RC
n

Av high Av high 1 = = n A A ( ) 1 + j ( f / f v mid overall v mid 2

For cutoff frequency : Av-high / Av-mid)overall = 1/2

1 = 2 n 2 [1 + ( f c high / f 2 ) ]

f c high = f 2 2 1

1 n

Multistage Amplifiers: Frequency Response

The cutoff frequencies for cascaded amplifiers with identical values of fc1 and fc2 are found using

f clow =

f c1 2 1
1 n

f chigh = f c 2 2 1

1 n

BWoverall = f chigh f clow

where n is the number of cascaded stages. When Each stage has a different lower & upper critical frequency When the lower critical frequency, fcL , of each amplifier stage is different, the dominant lower critical frequency, f'cL equals the critical frequency of the stage with the highest fcL. When the upper critical frequency fcu, of each amplifier stage is different, the dominant upper critical frequency f'cu, equals the critical frequency of the stage with the lowest fcu
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Types of Coupling:
In a multistage amplifier the output of one stage makes the input of the next stage. Normally a network is used between two stages so that a minimum loss of voltage occurs when the signal passes through this network to the next stage. Also the dc voltage at the output of one stage should not be permitted to go to the input of the next. Otherwise, the biasing of the next stage are disturbed. The three couplings generally used are. 1.RC coupling 2. Transformer coupling 3. direct coupling
Problem: A transformer coupling is used in the final stage of a multistage amplifier. If the output impedance of transistor is 1kohm and the speaker has a resistance of 10ohm. Find the turn ratio of the transformer in order to transfer maximum power to the load (speaker). Solution: For maximum power transfer, the impedance of the primary should be equal to the output impedance of the transistor and impedance of secondary should be equal to the load impedance. i.e. Primary impedance = output impedance of transistor = 1kohm; Secondary impedance = impedance of load = 10ohm

RS N = S Rp Np

Ns / Np =1:10
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RC coupling

It has excellent frequency response in a audio frequency range and cheaper in cost. The drawback of this approach is the lower frequency limit imposed by the coupling capacitor and poor impedance matching.

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Transformer coupling

RS NS = Transformer coupling is mainly used in Rp power amplifiers. Np

CS capacitor is used to make other point of transformer grounded, so that ac signal is applied between base and ground. The drawback of this approach is the poor frequency response.

Direct coupling
Direct coupling is the coupling method in which the output of one stage is directly connected to the input of the next stage. Direct coupling is used in differential and operational amplifiers.
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How the frequency response curve look like for direct coupling?

Comparison of different type of coupling

Characteristic
Frequency Response

R-C coupling
Excellent in audio frequency range

Transformer coupling
Poor

Direct Coupling
Best

Cost

Less

More

Least

Space & Weight

Less

More

Least

Impedance Matching

Not good

Excellent

Good

Use

Voltage amplification

Power amplification amplifying extremely low frequency

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Cascode amplifier
The cascode amplifier is combination of common-emitter and common-base amplifier.
While the C-B amplifier is known for wider bandwidth than the C-E configuration, the low input impedance (10s of ) of C-B is a limitation for many applications. The solution is to precede the C-B stage by a low gain C-E stage which has moderately high input impedance (ks).

The key to understanding the wide bandwidth of the cascode configuration is the Miller effect.

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Cascode amplifier
A common-base configuration is not subject to the Miller effect because the grounded base shields the collector signal from being fed back to the emitter input. Thus, a C-B amplifier has better high frequency response. The way to reduce the common-emitter gain is to reduce the load resistance. The gain of a C-E amplifier is approximately RC/re. The collector load RC is the resistance of the emitter of the C-B stage loading the C-E stage. CE gain amplifier gain is approximately Av = RC/re=1. This Miller capacitance is Cmiller = Ccbo(1-Av) = Ccbo (1-(-1)=2Ccbo. We now have a moderately high input impedance C-E stage without suffering the Miller effect, but no C-E stage voltage gain. The C-B stage provides a high voltage gain. The total current gain of cascode is as current gain of the C-E stage is 1 for the C-B is .

A cascode amplifier has a high gain, moderately high input impedance, a high output impedance, and a high bandwidth.
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Darlington Amplifier
It consists of two emitter followers in cascaded mode. The overall gain is close to unity. The main advantage of Darlington amplifier is very large increase in input impedence and an equal decrease in output impedance .

Input impedance:
The first transistor has one VBE drop and second transistor has second VBE drop. The voltage divider produces VTH to the input base. DC emitter current of the 2nd stage

IE2 = (VTH 2 vBE ) / (RE )

The dc emitter current of the first stage that is the base current of second stage:

IE1 = IE2 / 2
If r'e(2) is neglected then input impedance of second stage is Zin (2) = 2 RE
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Input impedance:
This is the impedance seen by the first transistor. If r'e(1) is also neglected then the input impedance of 1 becomes. Zin (1) = 1 2 RE : which is extremely high because of the products of two betas, so the approximate input impedance of Darlington amplifier is Zin = R1 || R2

Output impedance:
The Thevenin impedance at the input is given by: RTH = RS || R1 || R2 Similar to single stage common collector amplifier, the output impedance of the two stages zout(1) and zout(2) are given by.

Therefore, the output impedance of the amplifier is very small.

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