Electronics II Lab

Experiment (1): Multistage Amplifier

MULTISTAGE AMPLIFIER

Objectives

1. To determine the overall voltage gain of cascaded common-emitter amplifiers.

2. To demonstrate the loading effect of cascading common-emitter amplifiers.

Discussion

Often in electronic amplifier systems, several amplifiers are cascaded in order to furnish
adequate gain. It is easy to see that the resulting gain of two cascaded ideal amplifiers would
be the product of the individual gains. However, since voltage sources and amplifiers have
output resistance, and amplifiers and loads have input resistance, there are voltage divisions
taking place between these stages or amplification. Figure 1 shows a two-stage amplifier.
AO1 and AO2 are the open-circuit (unloaded) voltage gains of each stage:

Figure 1

To calculate the overall gain of the multistage amplifiers, the product of the individual open-
circuit gains of each stage is reduced by the voltage divider at the input and the output of each
stage. The following equation can be used to calculate the overall gain of a two-stage
amplifier.
Procedure

1. Use DMM to measure the 's of two transistors.

2. To measure the open-circuit voltage gain of a single stage, connect the following common
emitter amplifier circuit shown in figure 2:

Figure 2

3. With the signal generator set at 50mVp-p@1kHz, measure the no-load ac output voltage
VO as well as the phase shift of the output with respect to the input. This can be used to
determine the open-circuit unloaded voltage gain AO.

4. To demonstrate the effects on overall voltage gain of cascading two common emitter
amplifiers, make the following interconnection of two identical amplifiers (stages) shown in
figure 3:

5. With the signal generator set at 50mV p-p at 1 kHz, measure the output voltage VL across
the load resistor, as well as the phase shift with respect to the input voltage VS.
 Figure 3

Questions

1. Using the results of step 1, calculate the input resistance rin (stage), the output resistance rO
(stage), and the unloaded voltage gain (AO) of the two individual common emitter amplifier
stages. Compare the calculated voltage gain with the actual measured voltage gain obtained
in procedure step 3.

2. Using the results of question 1, calculate the overall gain from source-to-load VL/VS.
Compare the calculated gain with that measured in procedure step 5.

3. Explain the phase relationship of the output voltage VL with respect to the input voltage VS
as observed in procedure step 5.