SECTION-A CLASSIFICATION OF AMPLIFIERS

An electronic amplifier, amplifier, or (informally) amp is an electronic device that increases the power of a signal. It does this by taking energy from a power supply and controlling the output to match the input signal shape but with a larger amplitude. In this sense, an amplifier modulates the output of the power supply.

Ideal Amplifier We can know specify the characteristics for an ideal amplifier from our discussion above with regards to its Gain, meaning voltage gain:

The amplifiers gain, ( A ) should remain constant for varying values of input signal. Gain is not be affected by frequency. Signals of all frequencies must be amplified by exactly the same amount. The amplifiers gain must not add noise to the output signal. It should remove any noise that is already exists in the input signal. The amplifiers gain should not be affected by changes in temperature giving good temperature stability. The gain of the amplifier must remain stable over long periods of time.

There are many types of amplifiers used in radio and television transmitters and receivers, highfidelity ("hi-fi") stereo equipment, microcomputers and other electronic digital equipment, and guitar and other instrument amplifiers. Critical components include active devices, such as vacuum tubes or transistors. A brief introduction to the many types of electronic amplifier follows. One type is called the Small Signal Amplifier which include pre-amplifiers, instrumentation amplifiers etc. Small signal amplifies are designed to amplify very small signal voltage levels of only a few micro-volts (V) from sensors or audio signals. The other type are called Large Signal Amplifiers such as audio power amplifiers or power switching amplifiers. Large signal amplifiers are designed to amplify large input voltage signals or switch heavy load currents as you would find driving loudspeakers

Type of Signal

Type of Configuration

Based on classes of operation

Class A Amplifier Class B Amplifier Class AB Amplifier Class C Amplifier

Frequency of Operation
Direct Current (DC) Audio Frequencies (AF)

coupling

BASED ON OUTPUT SIGNAL

VOLTAGE POWER

Small Signal Common Emitter Large Signal Common Base Common Collector

Direct RC

Radio Frequencies TRANSFORMER (RF) VHF, UHF and SHF Frequencies

Distortion in Amplifiers : For a signal amplifier to operate correctly without any distortion to the output signal, it requires some form of DC Bias on its Base or Gate terminal so that it can amplify the input signal over its entire cycle with the bias "Q-point" set as near to the middle of the load line as possible. This then gave us a "Class-A" type amplification configuration with the most common arrangement being the "Common Emitter" for Bipolar transistors and the "Common Source" for unipolar FET transistors. Power, Voltage or Current Gain, (amplification) provided by the amplifier is the ratio of the peak output value to its peak input value (Output Input). However, if we incorrectly design our amplifier circuit and set the biasing Q-point at the wrong position on the load line or apply too large an input signal to the amplifier, the resultant output signal may not be an exact reproduction of the original input signal waveform. In other words the amplifier will suffer from distortion. Distortion of the output signal waveform may occur because: 1. Amplification may not be taking place over the whole signal cycle due to incorrect biasing levels. 2. The input signal may be too large, causing the amplifiers transistors to be limited by the supply voltage. 3. The amplification may not be a linear signal over the entire frequency range of inputs. This means then that during the amplification process of the signal waveform, some form of Amplifier Distortion has occurred.
1. Amplitude distortion

Amplitude distortion occurs when the peak values of the frequency waveform are attenuated causing distortion due to a shift in the Q-point and amplification may not take place over the whole signal cycle. This non-linearity of the output waveform is shown below.

Even with the correct biasing voltage level set, it is still possible for the output waveform to become distorted due to a large input signal being amplified by the circuits gain. The output voltage signal becomes clipped in both the positive and negative parts of the waveform an no longer resembles a sine wave, even when the bias is correct. This type of amplitude distortion is called Clipping and is the result of "Over-driving" the input of the amplifier. When the input amplitude becomes too large, the clipping becomes substantial and forces the output waveform signal to exceed the power supply voltage rails with the peak (+ve half) and the trough (-ve half) parts of the waveform signal becoming flattened or "Clipped-off". To avoid this the maximum value of the input signal must be limited to a level that will prevent this clipping effect as shown above.

2. Frequency Distortion occurs in a transistor amplifier when the level of amplification varies with frequency. Many of the input signals that a practical amplifier will amplify consist of the required signal waveform called the "Fundamental Frequency" plus a number of different frequencies called "Harmonics" superimposed onto it. Normally, the amplitude of these harmonics are a fraction of the fundamental amplitude and therefore have very little or no effect on the output waveform. However, the output waveform can become distorted if these harmonic frequencies increase in amplitude with regards to the fundamental frequency. For example, consider the waveform below:

3. Phase Distortion or Delay Distortion occurs in a non-linear transistor amplifier when

there is a time delay between the input signal and its appearance at the output. If we call the phase change between the input and the output zero at the fundamental frequency, the resultant phase angle delay will be the difference between the harmonic and the fundamental. This time delay will depend on the construction of the amplifier and will increase progressively with frequency within the bandwidth of the amplifier. For example, consider the waveform below:

Frequency Response
Frequency response is the quantitative measure of the output spectrum of a system or device in response to a stimulus, and is used to characterize the dynamics of the system. It is a measure of magnitude and phase of the output as a function of frequency, in comparison to the input. In simplest terms, if a sine wave is injected into a system at a given frequency, a linear system will respond at that same frequency with a certain magnitude and a certain phase angle relative to the input. The essential purpose of an amplifier is to accept an input signal and provide an enhanced copy of thatsignal as an output. However there is a fundamental relationship between signal frequency and gain such that a given gain cannot be maintained over an arbitrarily large frequency range. Physically it takes time for electric charge in a device to redistribute itself in response to a control signal, and so the response of adevice to a control signal inevitably becomes jumbled for very fast signal changes. This is an ultimate limitto circuit response; degradation of the response may begin at lower signal frequencies because of delaysassociated with other circuit components. Circuit components can introduce degradation of the frequencyresponse of a circuit at low frequencies as well as high, as will be seen.

In general the frequency response of an electronic circuit, e.g., the transfer gain of the circuit, has the general appearance illustrated. There is a mid-band range of operation for which the gain is substantially independent of frequency, bounded by high and low frequency ranges in which the gain is degraded. An amplifier is wide-band if the ratio of a frequency measuring the onset of the high-frequency degradation to a corresponding frequency for low frequency degradation is relatively large. A basic audio amplifier, for example, has a substantially flat response extending from about 100 Hz to roughly 10KHz. Narrow-band amplifiers, used for more specialized purposes, approximate selective amplification at a single frequency. Our basic interest here is in wide-band amplifiers. To simplify consideration of the frequency response of wide-band amplifiers analysis generally is separated into three frequency ranges. The argument used to justify this separation is that those circuit components associated with low-frequency degradation have by definition lost significant influence on the response in mid-band, and supposing a monotonic behavior have no influence on the high-frequency response. The converse argument removes the influence at low frequencies of those components affecting the high frequency response. And, of course, in midband by definition neither of these sets of components influences the response significantly. The mid-band range is the one assumed by neglecting the influence of coupling and bypass capacitors. Initially we assume that frequency constraints are associated with circuit components other than the active devices. Taking intrinsic device limitations into account is done later as an extension of the basic procedures.