ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS FOR COMMUNICATION

Chapter 5
Oscillators

Huynh Phu Minh Cuong

hpmcuong@hcmut.edu.vn

Department of Telecommunications
Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Ho Chi Minh city University of Technology
Dr. Cuong HuynhTelecommunications DepartmentHCMUT 1
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS FOR COMMUNICATION

Chapter 5
Oscillators

Reference:
[1] Smith, Jack, Modern Communications Circuits, Second Edition, McGraw Hill,
1998.
[2] Razavi, RF Microelectronics, Prentice Hall, 2 edition, 2011

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 1. Introduction
 Oscillator is an electronic circuit that generates a periodic
waveform on its output without an external signal source. It is
used to convert dc to ac.
 Oscillators are circuits that produce a continuous signal of some
type without the need of an input.
 Oscillators are used in a number of applications in which a
reference tone is required. For instance, they can be used as the
clock for digital circuits or as the source of the LO signal in
transmitters.
 In receivers, oscillator waveforms are used as the reference
frequency to mix down the received RF to an IF or to baseband. In
most RF applications, sinusoidal references with a high degree of
spectral purity (low phase noise) are required.
 Communications systems, digital systems (including computers),
and test equipment make use of oscillators
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 1. Introduction
• An oscillator is a circuit that produces a repetitive signal from a dc
voltage.
• The feedback oscillator relies on a positive feedback of the output
to maintain the oscillations.
• The relaxation oscillator makes use of an RC timing circuit to
generate a nonsinusoidal signal such as square wave
Sine wave

Square wave

Sawtooth wave

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 1. Introduction
Types of oscillators
1. RC oscillators
– Wien Bridge
– Phase-Shift
2. LC oscillators
– Hartley
– Colpitts
– Crystal
3. LC Crossed-couple Oscillator

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain

• An oscillator is an amplifier with positive feedback

+ V
Vs  Amplifier (A) Vo
+
Positive Vf Frequency-Selective
Feedback Network ()
Feedback

A linear oscillator contains:

- a frequency selection feedback network
- an amplifier to maintain the loop gain at unity

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain

• An oscillator is an amplifier with positive feedback

+ V
Vs  Amplifier (A) Vo
+
Positive Vf Frequency-Selective
Feedback Network ()
Feedback

Ve  Vs  V f (1) V f  βVo (2)

Vo  AVe  AVs  V f   AVs  βVo  (3)

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain

 In general A and  are functions of frequency

and thus may be written as;
As 
A f s   s  
Vo
Vs 1  As β s 

As β s  is known as loop gain

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain

 Writing T s   As β s  the loop gain becomes:

As 
A f s  
1  T s 
 Replacing s with j
A jω
A f  jω 
1  T  jω
and
T  jω  A jωβ  jω

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain

 At a specific frequency f0
T  jω0   A jω0 β  jω0   1
 At this frequency, the closed loop gain;
A jω0 
A f  jω0  
1  A jω0 β  jω0 

will be infinite, i.e. the circuit will have finite output

for zero input signal - oscillation

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain

 Thus, the condition for sinusoidal oscillation of

frequency f0 is:
A jω0 β  jω0   1
 This is known as Barkhausen criterion.
 The frequency of oscillation is solely determined
by the phase characteristic of the feedback loop –
the loop oscillates at the frequency for which the
phase is zero.

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 2. Conditions for Oscillation – Loop Gain
Summary:
+ V
Vs  A(f) Vo
+

Vf SelectiveNetwork
(f)

Vo  AV  A(Vs  V f ) and V f  Vo

Vo A
 
Vs 1  A
If Vs = 0, the only way that Vo can be nonzero is that loop gain
A=1 which implies that
| A | 1
(Barkhausen Criterion)
A  0
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