Jimma University

College of Natural Sciences

Department of Physics

Lecture Notes : Electronics I (Phys 2062)

Chapter Five: Operational Amplifiers and

Oscillations
By: Mrs. Hiwot Tegegn (lecturer)

April 2020
Outline of the Chapter
 Open loop Amplifiers,
 Ideal Amplifiers, Approximation Analysis Ope-loop Gain.
 The Ideal Op-Amp
 Analysis of Circuit Containing Ideal Op-Amps- Inverting
Configuration
 Applications of the Inverting Configurations
 The Non-inverting Configuration
 Examples of Op-Amp Circuits
 Transistor amplifier, biasing points
 Chapter Five: Operational Amplifiers and
Oscillations
 Knowledge and Skill Outcomes
 This unit starts with the understanding of Amplifiers. It includes
description of single and multi stage amplifiers and their
characteristics.
 Concept of Positive Feedback and Negative Feedback is discussed.
 Damped and Undammed oscillations have been explained using
suitable diagrams.
 Understanding of amplifier
 Understanding the single stage and multistage amplifier
 Knowledge about circuit diagram of single stage and multistage
amplifiers.
 To know various types of characteristics of an amplifier.
 Understanding the concept of feedback in amplifiers.
 Understanding the sinusoidal, non-sinusoidal, damped and
undamped oscillations.
 Introduction: Amplifiers
 No electronic system can work without an amplifier. Can the voice of a singer reach
everybody in the audience in a hall if PA system (Public Address system) fails?
 It is just because of the enlargement or the amplification of the signal picked up by
microphone that we can enjoy a music orchestra.
 We are able to hear the news or football match on radio receiver and also we are
able to watch and listen (Audio and Visual) programs on TV because the radio
receiver or TV catches the weak signal through antenna and amplifies it.
 Amplification means enlargement of a weak signal by an electronic circuit without
any distortion in the signal.
 The electronic circuit or device which amplifies the signal is known as Amplifier.

 We know if emitter-base junction of a transistor is forward biased and collector-

base junction is reverse biased it can work in active region. This biasing is called DC
biasing which is required for a transistor to work as an amplifier.
 Active region is the only region in which by carefully choosing the operating point
transistor can amplify the input weak signal and produce the fruitful output
without distortion.
 Introduction: Amplifiers
After proper DC biasing AC signal to be
amplified is fed to the input of a transistor
which is amplified by the transistor as per
its configuration. Now the transistor works
as an amplifier. Fig. 1 shows the circuit
diagram of DC biasing for a transistor to
work in active region. Fig. 2 shows the
circuit diagram of a transistor amplifier
which amplifies weak input signal.
 Amplifier is more precisely an electronic
device that increases the voltage,
current or power of an input signal with the
aid of transistor by furnishing the additional
power from a separate power source. At
that time we can also say that it is a
transistor amplifier.
 Single and Multistage Amplifiers
 When only one transistor is used in a transistor
amplifier to amplify weak input signal then it is
known as Single Stage Amplifier.
 A practical amplifier generally uses a number of
stages for amplification and is known as
Multistage Amplifier. Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 are examples
of single and multistage amplifiers respectively .
 In single stage amplifier the input signal is
multiplied by the gain or amplification factor of a
single amplifier. If input current is i then output
current for CE amplifier will be b i that B B shall
flow through output collector circuit.
 Here b is the current amplification factor for CE
amplifier. If input voltage is v then output
amplified voltage will be Axv where A is the
voltage gain of the amplifier
 The amplified output voltage of amplifier will be
180 out of phase with its input voltage signal for
CE amplifier circuit as shown in fig. 2 & 3.
 Single and Multistage Amplifiers
 The output from a single stage amplifier
is usually not sufficient to drive an output
device.
 In other words, the gain of a single
amplifier is inadequate for practical
purposes. Consequently, additional .
amplification over two or three stages is
necessary.
 To achieve this, the output of each
amplifier stage is coupled in some way
to the input of the next stage.
 The resulting system is referred to as
multistage amplifier. It may be
emphasized here that a practical
amplifier is always a multistage amplifier.
 For example, in a transistor radio
receiver, the number of amplification
stages may be six or more. A multistage
amplifier is shown in Fig. 4
 Feedbacks in Amplifiers
 Feedback : (Fig. 5) When a fraction of output is fed back to the input circuit, it is known as
feedback.
 The fraction of output may either be current or voltage. A feedback amplifier consists of
two parts: an amplifier and a feedback circuit.
 There are two types of feedback: (1) Positive feedback
(2) Negative feedback.
.
(1) Positive Feedback: If the feedback voltage (or current) is so applied that it increases the
input voltage (or current) then it is called positive feedback.
 In this case applied feedback voltage is in phase with input voltage.
 It is also known as regenerative or direct feedback.
 Positive feedback is used in oscillator circuits.
(2) Negative Feedback: If the feedback voltage (or current) is so applied that it reduces the
amplifier input then it is called negative feedback.
 In this case applied feedback voltage is 180 degree out of phase with input voltage.
 It is also known as degenerative or inverse feedback.
 Negative feedback is frequently used in amplifier circuits.
 Amplifier Characteristics
Any amplifier is characterized with its following characteristics:

 (1) Input Resistance

 (2) Output Resistance
 (3) Voltage Gain .
 (4) Current Gain
 (5) Power Gain
 (6) Phase Reversal
 Introduction to Oscillators
 The op-amp astable oscillator covered in Section 6.5 was our first example of an
oscillator – a circuit that produces a periodic output signal without an input
signal.
 These types of circuits have some kind of feedback mechanism that allows them
to oscillate spontaneously.
.
 We can categorize oscillators into two broad groups: relaxation oscillators and
sinusoidal oscillators
 The relaxation oscillators are characterized by non-sinusoidal output waveforms,
timing that is set by capacitor charging and discharging, and the non-linear
operation of its active components
 On the other hand, sinusoidal oscillators, as the name implies, have sinusoidal
output waveforms and linear operation of the active components, and the
analysis is done in the frequency domain (i.e., by considering how the circuit
responds to different frequencies)
 Introduction to Oscillators
 Any circuit that generates an alternative voltage is called
an oscillator.
 Output of an oscillator may be a sine wave, square wave,
sawtooth wave or pulses. Electronic oscillators may be
broadly divided into following two groups:
 (i) Sinusoidal (or Harmonic) Oscillators: Which
produce an output having sine wave form. .
 (ii) Non-Sinusoidal Oscillators: They produce an
output which has rectangular, square or saw
tooth waveform or is of pulse shape.
 Sinusoidal Oscillators may be damped and undamped.
 (i) Damped Oscillations: Oscillations whose
amplitude keeps decreasing (or decaying) with
time are called damped or decaying oscillations.
Wave form of such oscillations are shown in
Fig.6(a)
 (ii) Undamped Oscillations: Oscillations whose
amplitude remains constant i.e. does not
change with time are called undamped
oscillations. Such oscillations are shown in
Fig.6(b)
 Operational Amplifiers ( Op-Amp)
 Operational Amplifiers, or Op-amps as they are more commonly called, are one of
the basic building blocks of Analogue Electronic Circuits
 Operational amplifiers (OpAmps) are general purpose voltage amplifiers employed
in a variety of circuits.
 OpAmps are DC amplifiers with a very large gain, high input impedance and low
output resistance .
 They are constructed as a difference amplifiers, i.e., the output signal is
proportional to the difference between the two input signals.
 An OpAmp chip should be powered for it to work, i.e., power supply attachments
are necessary. These connections, however, are not usually shown in the circuit
diagram
 Operational amplifiers are linear devices that have all the properties required for
nearly ideal DC amplification and are therefore used extensively in signal
conditioning, filtering or to perform mathematical operations such as add,
subtract, integration on and differentiation.
 An Operational Amplifier, or op-amp for short, is fundamentally a voltage
amplifying device designed to be used with external feedback components such
as resistors and capacitors between its output and input terminals
 Operational Amplifiers ( Op-Amp)
 An Operational Amplifier, or op-amp for short, is fundamentally a voltage amplifying device
designed to be used with external feedback components such as resistors and capacitors
between its output and input terminals.
 These feedback components determine the resulting function or “operation” of the
amplifier and by virtue of the different feedback configurations whether resistive, capacitive
or both, the amplifier can perform a variety of different operations, giving rise to its name
of “Operational Amplifier”. .
 An Operational Amplifier is basically a three-terminal device which consists of two high
impedance inputs. One of the inputs is called the Inverting Input, marked with a negative or
“minus” sign, ( – ).
 The other input is called the Non-inverting Input, marked with a positive or “plus” sign ( + ).
 The output voltage signal from an Operational Amplifier is the difference between the
signals being applied to its two individual inputs.
 In other words, an op-amps output signal is the difference between the two input signals
as the input stage of an Operational Amplifier is in fact a differential amplifier as shown
below
 Amplifiers are two-port networks in which the output voltage or current is directly
proportional to either input voltage or current. Four different kinds of amplifiers exit:
 Voltage amplier: Av = Vo=Vi = constant
 Current amplifier: Ai = Io=Ii = consant
 Transconductance amplier: Gm = Io=Vi = constant
 Trans resistance amplifier: Rm = Vo=Ii = constant
 Operational Amplifiers ( Op-Amp)
 Amplifiers are two-port networks in which the output voltage or current is directly
proportional to either input voltage or current. Four different kinds of amplifiers
exit:
 Voltage amplier: Av = Vo=Vi = constant
 Current amplifier: Ai = Io=Ii = consant
.
 Transconductance amplier: Gm = Io=Vi = constant
 Trans resistance amplifier: Rm = Vo=Ii = constant

Fig. Ideal operational amplifier

 The ideal op-amp
 To facilitate the understanding of op amp
circuits, we will assume ideal op amps.
 An op amp is ideal if it has the following
characteristics :
1. Infinite open-loop gain,
2. Infinite input resistance, .
3. Zero output resistance, Ro 0.
 No current flows into the input terminals of
the device. This is equivalent to having an
infinite input resistance Ri=∞. In practical
terms this implies that the amplifier device
will make no power demands on the input
signal source.
 Have a zero output resistance (Ro=0). This
implies that the output voltage is independent
of the load connected to the output.
 In addition the ideal op-amp model will have
infinite open loop gain ( A →∞). The ideal op-
amp model is shown schematically on Figure 4.
 Inverting Amplifier
It is a useful op amp circuits that often serve
as modules for designing more complex
circuits.
An inverting amplifier reverses the polarity
of the input signal while amplifying it .
 A key feature of the inverting amplifier is
that both the input signal and the feedback
are applied at the inverting terminal of the
op amp.
 Notice that the gain is the feedback
resistance divided by the input resistance
which means that the gain depends only on
the external elements connected to the op
amp
 The inverting amplifier is used, for example,
in a current-to-voltage converter
 Noninverting Amplifier
 Another important application of the op amp is the noninverting
amplifier shown in Figure
 A noninverting amplifier is an op amp circuit designed to provide
a positive voltage gain
 In this case, the input voltage vi is applied directly at the.
noninverting input terminal
 The gain depends only on the external resistors