Electronic circuits II

Unit-I (Feedback amplifiers)

Basic Concepts
OBJECTIVES
The need of feedback and its basic concepts
• consequences of feedback
• types of feedback
• properties of negative feedback

Need of Feedback
• Practical realization of precision VLSI circuits is complicated
--physical circuit components deviate from nominal values due to temperature, process variation
----circuit performance changes with frequency, load variations

Consequences
• Example—gain changes with frequency, load, temperature, process variations.
• Gain shows a non linear behavior
• Designer can never predict the gain as it can vary
• Designing becomes difficult

How to get linear behavior?

• How to make gain stable?
Or
• How to desensitize gain with respect to temp, process frequency, load variation?

Concept
_ Improvement in behaviour -----
Sense output voltage and make corrections
in input . Repeat the process
If output increases, dec. the input or vice-versa for stable gain

Block diagram representation

Feedback-Definition
When a portion of output signal is sampled & fedback to the input, then a feedback is said to be
established.

Feedback plays a very important role in all electronic circuits.

Types of feedback
• Positive---i/p & fb signal are in phase
distorted output +input _ Amplified (distorted output)
• Negative ----i/p & fb signal are out of phase input - Fraction of distorted output _
Amplified (undistorted output)

Negative Feedback Properties

Negative feedback takes a sample of the output signal and applies it to the input to get
several desirable properties. In amplifiers, negative feedback can be applied to get the following
properties
–Desensitized gain – gain less sensitive to circuit component variations
–Reduce nonlinear distortion – output proportional to input (constant gain independent of signal
level)
–Reduce effect of noise
–Control input and output impedances – by applying appropriate feedback topologies
–Extend bandwidth of amplifier
These properties can be achieved by trading off gain

Classification of amplifiers:
1. Voltage amplifier
2. Current amplifier
3. Transconductance amplifier
4. Transresistance amplifier

The VA provides a voltage output proportional to the voltage input and the proportionality factor is
independent of the magnitudes of the proportionality factor is independent of the magnitudes of the
source and load resistances.

• The CA provides an output current proportional to the signal current and the
proportionality factor is independent of the magnitudes of the source and load resistances.
• The TCA provides an output current proportional to the signal voltage, independently of the
magnitudes of the source and load resistant independently of the magnitudes of the source and load
resistances.
• The TRA provides an output voltage proportional to the signal current independently of the
magnitudes of the source and load resistances.

When any increase in the output signal results in a feedback signal into input in such a way
as to cause a decrease in the output signal, the amplifier is said to have
negative feedback.

The basic advantages of negative feedback are, 1) input resistance of an amplifier can be make
higher and output resistance can be lowered 2) the gain Af with feedback can be stabilized against
variations in –h or other parameters 3) significant improvement in the frequency response and linear
operation.

Amplifier gain with feedback:

Let us suppose input signal is Xs, output signal is Xo and feedback signal is Xf.
• difference signal Xd = Xs — Xf = Xi
• reverse gain b º Xf / Xo
• forward gain A = Xo / Xi
• gain with feedback Af = Xo / Xs = A /(1+bA)
If Af < A ; feedback is negative and if Af > A ; feedback is positive.
Assumptions:
1. The input signal is transmitted to output through amplifier A and not through the b network.
2. The feedback signal is transmitted from the output to the input through b block, and not through
the amplifier.
3. The reverse transmission factor b is independent of the load and source resistances.
Feedback topologies
As mentioned above, the four feedback topologies can be defined as:
(connection of feedback network to input terminal) – (connection of feedback network to output
terminal)
• i.e,
– Series-shunt (input to F: Voltage, output to F: Voltage)
– Series-series (input to F: Voltage, output to F: Current)
– Shunt-series (input to F: Current, output to F: Current)
– Shunt-shunt (input to F: Current, output to F: Voltage)

Effect of negative feedback on gain

In series voltage feedback, input signal is voltage and output voltage is sampled, so it is natural to
model the amplifier as a voltage amplifier.

Amplifier employing series current feedback is modeled as a transconductance amplifier.

Amplifier employing parallel voltage feedback is modeled as a transresistance amplifier.

Amplifier employing parallel current feedback is modeled as a current amplifier.

Effect of feedback on the input resistance of amplifier

In feedback amplifiers, series mixing tends to increase the input resistance and shunt mixing tends to
decrease the input resistance.
If the input impedance of the open-loop amplifier is Ri, then the closed-loop impedance is
so, series feedback (either
current or voltage) increase the input impedance
• Similarly, the effect of parallel feedback on input impedance can be analyzed using a similar
model, the closed-loop input impedance would then be
 so, parallel feedback decrease the input impedance.

Let us think of voltage sampling. If RL increases so that Vo increases, the effect of feeding this
voltage back to the input in negative manner will cause Vo to increase less than if there were no
feedback. Hence, the output voltage remains constant as RL changes, which means Rof << RL.

For current sampling. In negative feedback which samples the output current will hold this current
constant. Hence, an output current source is created, which means Rof >> RL.