Amplifier is the generic term used to describe a circuit which increases its input signal,

but not all amplifiers are the same as they are classified according to their circuit
configurations and methods of operation. In “Electronics”, small signal amplifiers are
commonly used devices as they have the ability to amplify a relatively small input signal,
for example from a Sensor such as a photo-device, into a much larger output signal to
drive a relay, lamp or loudspeaker for example.
There are many forms of electronic circuits classed as amplifiers, from Operational
Amplifiers and Small Signal Amplifiers up to Large Signal and Power Amplifiers. The
classification of an amplifier depends upon the size of the signal, large or small, its
physical configuration and how it processes the input signal, that is the relationship
between input signal and current flowing in the load.
The type or classification of an Amplifier is given in the following table.

Classification of Amplifiers

Type of Frequency of
Type of Signal Classification
Configuration Operation

Small Signal Common Emitter Class A Amplifier Direct Current (DC)

Audio Frequencies
Large Signal Common Base Class B Amplifier
(AF)

Common Collector Class AB Amplifier Radio Frequencies (RF)

VHF, UHF and SHF

Class C Amplifier
Frequencies

Amplifiers can be thought of as a simple box or block containing the amplifying device,
such as a Bipolar Transistor, Field Effect Transistor or Operational Amplifier, which has
two input terminals and two output terminals (ground being common) with the output
signal being much greater than that of the input signal as it has been “Amplified”.
Generally, an ideal signal amplifier has three main properties, Input
Resistance or ( Rin), Output Resistance or ( Rout ) and of course amplification known
commonly as Gain or ( A ). No matter how complicated an amplifier circuit is, a general
amplifier model can still be used to show the relationship of these three properties.

Ideal Amplifier Model

The amplified difference

between the input and output
signals is known as the Gain of
the amplifier. Gain is basically a
measure of how much an amplifier “amplifies” the input signal. For example, if we have
an input signal of 1 volt and an output of 50 volts, then the gain of the amplifier would be
“50”. In other words, the input signal has been increased by a factor of 50. This increase
is called Gain.
Amplifier gain is simply the ratio of the output divided-by the input. Gain has no units as
its a ratio, but in Electronics it is commonly given the symbol “A”, for Amplification.
Then the gain of an amplifier is simply calculated as the “output signal divided by the
input signal”.

Amplifier Gain
The introduction to the amplifier gain can be said to be the relationship that exists
between the signal measured at the output with the signal measured at the input. There are
three different kinds of amplifier gain which can be measured and these are: Voltage
Gain ( Av ), Current Gain ( Ai ) and Power Gain ( Ap ) depending upon the quantity
being measured with examples of these different types of gains are given below.

Amplifier Gain of the Input Signal

Voltage Amplifier
Gain

Current Amplifier
Gain

Power Amplifier Gain

Note that for the Power Gain

you can also divide the power
obtained at the output with the
power obtained at the input. Also
when calculating the gain of an
amplifier, the
subscripts v, i and p are used to
denote the type of signal gain being used.
The power Gain or power level of the amplifier can also be expressed in Decibels, (dB).
The Bel (B) is a logarithmic unit (base 10) of measurement that has no units. Since the
Bel is too large a unit of measure, it is prefixed with deci making it Decibels instead with
one decibel being one tenth (1/10th) of a Bel. To calculate the gain of the amplifier in
Decibels or dB, we can use the following expressions.
 Voltage Gain in dB: av = 20 log Av
 Current Gain in dB: ai = 20 log Ai
 Power Gain in dB: ap = 10 log Ap
Note that the DC power gain of an amplifier is equal to ten times the common log of the
output to input ratio, where as voltage and current gains are 20 times the common log of
the ratio. Note however, that 20dB is not twice as much power as 10dB because of the log
scale.
Also, a positive value of dB represents a Gain and a negative value of dB represents
a Losswithin the amplifier. For example, an amplifier gain of +3dB indicates that the
amplifiers output signal has “doubled”, (x2) while an amplifier gain of -3dB indicates
that the signal has “halved”, (x0.5) or in other words a loss.
The -3dB point of an amplifier is called the half-power point which is -3dB down from
maximum, taking 0dB as the maximum output value.

Example No1
Determine the Voltage, Current and Power Gain of an amplifier that has an input signal of
1mA at 10mV and a corresponding output signal of 10mA at 1V. Also, express all three
gains in decibels, (dB).
The Various Amplifier Gains:

Also in Decibels (dB):

Then the amplifier has a Voltage

Gain of 100, a Current Gain of
10 and a Power Gain of 1,000.
Generally, amplifiers can be sub-
divided into two distinct types
depending upon their power or
voltage gain. 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 (μV) 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.

Power Amplifiers
The Small Signal Amplifier is generally referred to as a “Voltage” amplifier because
they usually convert a small input voltage into a much larger output voltage. Sometimes
an amplifier circuit is required to drive a motor or feed a loudspeaker and for these types
of applications where high switching currents are needed Power Amplifiers are required.
As their name suggests, the main job of a “Power Amplifier” (also known as a large
signal amplifier), is to deliver power to the load, and as we know from above, is the
product of the voltage and current applied to the load with the output signal power being
greater than the input signal power. In other words, a power amplifier amplifies the power
of the input signal which is why these types of amplifier circuits are used in audio
amplifier output stages to drive loudspeakers.
The power amplifier works on the basic principle of converting the DC power drawn
from the power supply into an AC voltage signal delivered to the load. Although the
amplification is high the efficiency of the conversion from the DC power supply input to
the AC voltage signal output is usually poor.
The perfect or ideal amplifier would give us an efficiency rating of 100% or at least the
power “IN” would be equal to the power “OUT”. However, in reality this can never
happen as some of the power is lost in the form of heat and also, the amplifier itself
consumes power during the amplification process. Then the efficiency of an amplifier is
given as:

Amplifier Efficiency

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.

Amplifier Classes
The classification of an amplifier as either a voltage or a power amplifier is made by
comparing the characteristics of the input and output signals by measuring the amount of
time in relation to the input signal that the current flows in the output circuit.
We saw in the Common Emitter transistor tutorial that for the transistor to operate
within its “Active Region” some form of “Base Biasing” was required. This small Base
Bias voltage added to the input signal allowed the transistor to reproduce the full input
waveform at its output with no loss of signal.
However, by altering the position of this Base bias voltage, it is possible to operate an
amplifier in an amplification mode other than that for full waveform reproduction. With
the introduction to the amplifier of a Base bias voltage, different operating ranges and
modes of operation can be obtained which are categorized according to their
classification. These various mode of operation are better known as Amplifier Class.
Audio power amplifiers are classified in an alphabetical order according to their circuit
configurations and mode of operation. Amplifiers are designated by different classes of
operation such as class “A”, class “B”, class “C”, class “AB”, etc. These different
amplifier classes range from a near linear output but with low efficiency to a non-linear
output but with a high efficiency.
No one class of operation is “better” or “worse” than any other class with the type of
operation being determined by the use of the amplifying circuit. There are typical
maximum conversion efficiencies for the various types or class of amplifier, with the
most commonly used being:
 Class A Amplifier – has low efficiency of less than 40% but good signal reproduction and
linearity.
 Class B Amplifier – is twice as efficient as class A amplifiers with a maximum theoretical
efficiency of about 70% because the amplifying device only conducts (and uses power) for half of
the input signal.
 Class AB Amplifier – has an efficiency rating between that of Class A and Class B but poorer
signal reproduction than class A amplifiers.
 Class C Amplifier – is the most inefficient amplifier class as only a very small portion of the
input signal is amplified therefore the output signal bears very little resemblance to the input
signal. Class C amplifiers have the worst signal reproduction.

Class A Amplifier Operation

Class A Amplifier operation is where the entire input signal waveform is faithfully
reproduced at the amplifiers output as the transistor is perfectly biased within its active
region, thereby never reaching either of its Cut-off or Saturation regions. This then results
in the AC input signal being perfectly “centred” between the amplifiers upper and lower
signal limits as shown below.

Class A Output Waveform

In this configuration, the Class A

amplifier uses the same
transistor for both halves of the
output waveform and due to its
biasing arrangement the output
transistor always has current
flowing through it, even if there
is no input signal. In other words the output transistors never turns “OFF”. This results in
the class A type of operation being very inefficient as its conversion of the DC supply
power to the AC signal power delivered to the load is usually very low.
Generally, the output transistor of a Class A amplifier gets very hot even when there is no
input signal present so some form of heat sinking is required. The direct current flowing
through the output transistor (Ic) when there is no output signal will be equal to the
current flowing through the load. Then a Class A amplifier is very inefficient as most of
the DC power is converted to heat.

Class B Amplifier Operation

Unlike the Class A amplifier mode of operation above that uses a single transistor for its
output power stage, the Class B Amplifier uses two complimentary transistors (either an
NPN and a PNP or a NMOS and a PMOS) for each half of the output waveform. One
transistor conducts for one-half of the signal waveform while the other conducts for the
other or opposite half of the signal waveform. This means that each transistor spends half
of its time in the active region and half its time in the cut-off region thereby amplifying
only 50% of the input signal.
Class B operation has no direct DC bias voltage like the class A amplifier, but instead the
transistor only conducts when the input signal is greater than the base-emitter voltage and
for silicon devices is about 0.7v. Therefore, at zero input there is zero output. This then
results in only half the input signal being presented at the amplifiers output giving a
greater amount of amplifier efficiency as shown below.

Class B Output Waveform

In a class B amplifier, no DC
voltage is used to bias the
transistors, so for the output
transistors to start to conduct each half of the waveform, both positive and negative, they
need the base-emitter voltage Vbe to be greater than the 0.7v required for a bipolar
transistor to start conducting.
Then the lower part of the output waveform which is below this 0.7v window will not be
reproduced accurately resulting in a distorted area of the output waveform as one
transistor turns “OFF” waiting for the other to turn back “ON”. The result is that there is
a small part of the output waveform at the zero voltage cross over point which will be
distorted. This type of distortion is called Crossover Distortion and is looked at later on
in this section.

Class AB Amplifier Operation

The Class AB Amplifier is a compromise between the Class A and the Class B
configurations above. While Class AB operation still uses two complementary transistors
in its output stage a very small biasing voltage is applied to the Base of the transistor to
bias it close to the Cut-off region when no input signal is present.
An input signal will cause the transistor to operate as normal in its Active region thereby
eliminating any crossover distortion which is present in class B configurations. A small
Collector current will flow when there is no input signal but it is much less than that for
the Class A amplifier configuration.
This means then that the transistor will be “ON” for more than half a cycle of the
waveform. This type of amplifier configuration improves both the efficiency and linearity
of the amplifier circuit compared to a pure Class A configuration.

Class AB Output Waveform

The class of operation for an

amplifier is very important and
is based on the amount of
transistor bias required for
operation as well as the
amplitude required for the input
signal. Amplifier classification
takes into account the portion of the input signal in which the transistor conducts as well
as determining both the efficiency and the amount of power that the switching transistor
both consumes and dissipates in the form of wasted heat. Then we can make a
comparison between the most common types of amplifier classifications in the following
table.

Power Amplifier Classes

 Class A B C AB

Conduction
360o 180o Less than 90o 180 to 360o
Angle

In between the
Position of Centre Point of Exactly on the Below the
X-axis and the
the Q-point the Load Line X-axis X-axis
Centre Load Line

Better than A
Overall Poor Better Higher
but less than B
Efficiency 25 to 30% 70 to 80% than 80%
50 to 70%

None if
Signal At the X-axis
Correctly Large Amounts Small Amounts
Distortion Crossover Point
Biased

Badly designed amplifiers especially the Class “A” types may also require larger power
transistors, more expensive heat sinks, cooling fans, or even an increase in the size of the
power supply required to deliver the extra power required by the amplifier. Power
converted into heat from transistors, resistors or any other component for that matter,
makes any electronic circuit inefficient and will result in the premature failure of the
device.
So why use a Class A amplifier if its efficiency is less than 40% compared to a Class
Bamplifier that has a higher efficiency rating of over 70%. Basically, a Class A amplifier
gives a much more linear output meaning that it has, Linearity over a larger frequency
response even if it does consume large amounts of DC power.
In this Introduction to the Amplifier tutorial, we have seen that there are different types
of amplifier circuit each with its own advantages and disadvantages. In the next tutorial
about amplifiers, we will look at the most commonly connected type of transistor
amplifier circuit, the common emitter amplifier. Most transistor amplifiers are of the
Common Emitter or CE type circuit due to their large gains in voltage, current and power
as well as their excellent input/output characteristics.