Crossover Distortion Summary

Crossover Distortion

We have seen that one of the main disadvantages of a Class A Amplifier is its low full power efficiency rating. But we also know that we can improve the amplifier and almost double its efficiency simply by changing the output stage of the amplifier to a Class B push-pull type configuration. However, this is great from an efficiency point of view, but most modern Class B amplifiers are transformerless or complementary types with two transistors in their output stage.

This results in one main fundamental problem with push-pull amplifiers in that the two transistors do not combine together fully at the output both halves of the waveform due to their unique zero cut-off biasing arrangement. As this problem occurs when the signal changes or "crosses-over" from one transistor to the other at the zero voltage point it produces an amount of "distortion" to the output wave shape. This results in a condition that is commonly called Crossover Distortion.

Crossover Distortion produces a zero voltage "flat spot" or "deadband" on the output wave shape as it crosses over from one half of the waveform to the other. The reason for this is that the transition period when the transistors are switching over from one to the other, does not stop or start exactly at the zero crossover point thus causing a small delay between the first transistor turning "OFF" and the second transistor turning "ON". This delay results in both transistors being switched "OFF" at the same instant in time producing an output wave shape as shown below.

Crossover Distortion Waveform

In order that there should be no distortion of the output waveform we must assume that each transistor starts conducting when its base to emitter voltage rises just above zero, but we know that this is not true because for silicon bipolar transistors the base voltage must reach at least 0.7v before the transistor starts to conduct thereby producing this flat spot. This crossover distortion effect also reduces the overall peak to peak value of the output waveform causing the maximum power output to be reduced as shown below.

Non-Linear Transfer Characteristics

This effect is less pronounced for large input signals as the input voltage is usually quite large but for smaller input signals it can be more severe causing audio distortion to the amplifier.

Pre-biasing the Output

The problem of Crossover Distortion can be reduced considerably by applying a slight forward base bias voltage (same idea as seen in the Transistor tutorial) to the bases of the two transistors via the centre-tap of the input transformer, thus the transistors are no longer biased at the zero cut-off point but instead are "Pre-biased" at a level determined by this new biasing voltage.

Push-pull Amplifier with Pre-biasing

This type of resistor pre-biasing causes one transistor to turn "ON" exactly at the same time as the other transistor turns "OFF" as both transistors are now biased slightly above their original cut-off point. However, to achieve this the bias voltage must be at least twice that of the normal base to emitter voltage to turn "ON" the transistors. This pre-biasing can also be implemented in transformerless amplifiers that use complementary transistors by simply replacing the two potential divider resistors with Biasing Diodes as shown below.

Pre-biasing with Diodes

This pre-biasing voltage either for a transformer or transformerless amplifier circuit, has the effect of moving the amplifiers Q-point past the original cut-off point thus allowing each transistor to operate within its active region for slightly more than half or 180^o of each half cycle. In other words 180^o + Bias. The amount of diode biasing voltage present at the base terminal of the transistor can be increased in multiples by adding additional diodes in series. This then produces an amplifier circuit commonly called a Class AB Amplifier and its biasing arrangement is given below.

Class AB Output Characteristics

 

Then to summarise, Crossover Distortion occurs in Class B amplifiers because the amplifier is biased at its cut-off point. This then results in BOTH transistors being switched "OFF" at the same instant in time as the waveform crosses the zero axis. By applying a small base bias voltage either by using a resistive potential divider circuit or diode biasing this crossover distortion can be greatly reduced or even eliminated completely by bringing the transistors to the point of being just switched "ON".

The application of a biasing voltage produces another type or class of amplifier circuit commonly called a Class AB Amplifier. Then the difference between a pure Class B amplifier and an improved Class AB amplifier is in the biasing level applied to the output transistors. One major advantage of using diodes over resistors is that the pn-junctions compensate for variations in the temperature of the transistors. Therefore, we can say the a Class AB amplifier is a Class B amplifier with "Bias" and we can summarise as:

• Class A Amplifiers – No Crossover Distortion as they are biased in the centre of the load line.
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• Class B Amplifiers – Large amounts of Crossover Distortion due to biasing at the cut-off point.
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• Class AB Amplifiers – Some Crossover Distortion if the biasing level is set too low.

The Class B Amplifier

 

To improve the full power efficiency of the previous Class A amplifier by reducing the wasted power in the form of heat, it is possible to design the power amplifier circuit with two transistors in its output stage producing what is commonly termed as a Class B Amplifier also known as a push-pull amplifier configuration.

Push-pull amplifiers use two "complementary" or matching transistors, one being an NPN-type and the other being a PNP-type with both power transistors receiving the same input signal together that is equal in magnitude, but in opposite phase to each other. This results in one transistor only amplifying one half or 180^o of the input waveform cycle while the other transistor amplifies the other half or remaining 180^o of the input waveform cycle with the resulting "two-halves" being put back together again at the output terminal.

Then the conduction angle for this type of amplifier circuit is only 180^o or 50% of the input signal. This pushing and pulling effect of the alternating half cycles by the transistors gives this type of circuit its amusing "push-pull" name, but are more generally known as the Class B Amplifier as shown below.

Class B Push-pull Transformer Amplifier Circuit

The circuit above shows a standard Class B Amplifier circuit that uses a balanced centre-tapped input transformer, which splits the incoming waveform signal into two equal halves and which are 180^o out of phase with each other. Another centre-tapped transformer on the output is used to recombined the two signals providing the increased power to the load. The transistors used for this type of transformer push-pull amplifier circuit are both NPN transistors with their emitter terminals connected together.

Here, the load current is shared between the two power transistor devices as it decreases in one device and increases in the other throughout the signal cycle reducing the output voltage and current to zero. The result is that both halves of the output waveform now swings from zero to twice the quiescent current thereby reducing dissipation. This has the effect of almost doubling the efficiency of the amplifier to around 70%.

Assuming that no input signal is present, then each transistor carries the normal quiescent collector current, the value of which is determined by the base bias which is at the cut-off point. If the transformer is accurately centre tapped, then the two collector currents will flow in opposite directions (ideal condition) and there will be no magnetization of the transformer core, thus minimizing the possibility of distortion.

When an input signal is present across the secondary of the driver transformer T1, the transistor base inputs are in "anti-phase" to each other as shown, thus if TR1 base goes positive driving the transistor into heavy conduction, its collector current will increase but at the same time the base current of TR2 will go negative further into cut-off and the collector current of this transistor decreases by an equal amount and vice versa. Hence negative halves are amplified by one transistor and positive halves by the other transistor giving this push-pull effect.

Unlike the DC condition, these AC currents are ADDITIVE resulting in the two output half-cycles being combined to reform the sine-wave in the output transformers primary winding which then appears across the load.

Class B Amplifier operation has zero DC bias as the transistors are biased at the cut-off, so each transistor only conducts when the input signal is greater than the base-emitter voltage. Therefore, at zero input there is zero output and no power is being consumed. This then means that the actual Q-point of a Class B amplifier is on the Vce part of the load line as shown below.

Class B Output Characteristics Curves

The Class B Amplifier has the big advantage over their Class A amplifier cousins in that no current flows through the transistors when they are in their quiescent state (ie, with no input signal), therefore no power is dissipated in the output transistors or transformer when there is no signal present unlike Class A amplifier stages that require significant base bias thereby dissipating lots of heat - even with no input signal present. So the overall conversion efficiency ( η ) of the amplifier is greater than that of the equivalent Class A with efficiencies reaching as high as 70% possible resulting in nearly all modern types of push-pull amplifiers operated in this Class B mode.

Transformerless Class B Push-Pull Amplifier

One of the main disadvantages of the Class B amplifier circuit above is that it uses balanced centre-tapped transformers in its design, making it expensive to construct. However, there is another type of Class B amplifier called a Complementary-Symmetry Class B Amplifier that does not use transformers in its design therefore, it is transformerless using instead complementary or matching pairs of power transistors. As transformers are not needed this makes the amplifier circuit much smaller for the same amount of output, also there are no stray magnetic effects or transformer distortion to effect the quality of the output signal. An example of a "transformerless" Class B amplifier circuit is given below.

Class B Transformerless Output Stage

The Class B amplifier circuit above uses complimentary transistors for each half of the waveform and while Class B amplifiers have a much high gain than the Class A types, one of the main disadvantages of class B type push-pull amplifiers is that they suffer from an effect known commonly as Crossover Distortion.

Hopefully we remember from our tutorials about Transistors that it takes approximately 0.7 volts (measured from base to emitter) to get a bipolar transistor to start conducting. In a pure class B amplifier, the output transistors are not "pre-biased" to an "ON" state of operation.

This means that the part of the output waveform which falls below this 0.7 volt window will not be reproduced accurately as the transition between the two transistors (when they are switching over from one transistor to the other), the transistors do not stop or start conducting exactly at the zero crossover point even if they are specially matched pairs. The output transistors for each half of the waveform (positive and negative) will each have a 0.7 volt area in which they are not conducting. The resuslt is that both transistors are turned "OFF" at exactly the same time.

A simple way to eliminate crossover distortion in a Class B amplifier is to add two small voltage sources to the circuit to bias both the transistors at a point slightly above their cut-off point. This then would give us what is commonly called an Class AB Amplifier circuit. However, it is impractical to add additional voltage sources to the amplifier circuit so pn-junctions are used to provide the additional bias in the form of silicon diodes.

The Class AB Amplifier

We know that we need the base-emitter voltage to be greater than 0.7v for a silicon bipolar transistor to start conducting, so if we were to replace the two voltage divider biasing resistors connected to the base terminals of the transistors with two silicon Diodes, the biasing voltage applied to the transistors would now be equal to the forward voltage drop of the diode. These two diodes are generally called Biasing Diodes or Compensating Diodes and are chosen to match the characteristics of the matching transistors. The circuit below shows diode biasing.

Class AB Amplifier

The Class AB Amplifier circuit is a compromise between the Class A and the Class B configurations. This very small diode biasing voltage causes both transistors to slightly conduct even when no input signal is present. An input signal waveform will cause the transistors to operate as normal in their active region thereby eliminating any crossover distortion present in pure Class B amplifier designs.

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 but much less than a full cycle giving a conduction angle of between 180 to 360^o or 50 to 100% of the input signal depending upon the amount of additional biasing used. The amount of diode biasing voltage present at the base terminal of the transistor can be increased in multiples by adding additional diodes in series.

Class B amplifiers are greatly preferred over Class A designs for high-power applications such as audio power amplifiers and PA systems. Like the Class A Amplifier circuit, one way to greatly boost the current gain ( A_i ) of a Class B push-pull amplifier is to use Darlington transistors pairs instead of single transistors in its output circuitry.

In the next tutorial about Amplifiers we will look more closely at the effects of Crossover Distortion in Class B amplifier circuits and ways to reduce its effect.

Class A Amplifier

 

Common emitter amplifiers are the most commonly used type of amplifier as they have a large voltage gain. They are designed to produce a large output voltage swing from a relatively small input signal voltage of only a few millivolt's and are used mainly as "small signal amplifiers" as we saw in the previous tutorials. However, sometimes an amplifier is required to drive large resistive loads such as a loudspeaker or to drive a motor in a robot and for these types of applications where high switching currents are needed Power Amplifiers are required.

The main function of the power amplifier, which are also known as a "large signal amplifier" is to deliver power, which is the product of voltage and current to the load. Basically a power amplifier is also a voltage amplifier the difference being that the load resistance connected to the output is relatively low, for example a loudspeaker of 4 or 8Ωs resulting in high currents flowing through the collector of the transistor. Because of these high load currents the output transistor(s) used for power amplifier output stages such as the 2N3055 need to have higher voltage and power ratings than the general ones used for small signal amplifiers such as the BC107.

Since we are interested in delivering maximum AC power to the load, while consuming the minimum DC power possible from the supply we are mostly concerned with the "conversion efficiency" of the amplifier. However, one of the main disadvantage of power amplifiers and especially the Class A amplifier is that their overall conversion efficiency is very low as large currents mean that a considerable amount of power is lost in the form of heat. Percentage efficiency in amplifiers is defined as the r.m.s. output power dissipated in the load divided by the total DC power taken from the supply source as shown below.

Power Amplifier Efficiency

• Where:
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• η%  - is the efficiency of the amplifier.
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• Pout  - is the amplifiers output power delivered to the load.
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• Pdc  - is the DC power taken from the supply.

For a power amplifier it is very important that the amplifiers power supply is well designed to provide the maximum available continuous power to the output signal.

Class A Amplifier

The most commonly used type of power amplifier configuration is the Class A Amplifier. The Class A amplifier is the most common and simplest form of power amplifier that uses the switching transistor in the standard common emitter circuit configuration as seen previously. The transistor is always biased "ON" so that it conducts during one complete cycle of the input signal waveform producing minimum distortion and maximum amplitude to the output.

This means then that the Class A Amplifier configuration is the ideal operating mode, because there can be no crossover or switch-off distortion to the output waveform even during the negative half of the cycle. Class A power amplifier output stages may use a single power transistor or pairs of transistors connected together to share the high load current. Consider the Class A amplifier circuit below.

Single Stage Amplifier Circuit

This is the simplest type of Class A power amplifier circuit. It uses a single-ended transistor for its output stage with the resistive load connected directly to the Collector terminal. When the transistor switches "ON" it sinks the output current through the Collector resulting in an inevitable voltage drop across the Emitter resistance thereby limiting the negative output capability. The efficiency of this type of circuit is very low (less than 30%) and delivers small power outputs for a large drain on the DC power supply. A Class A amplifier stage passes the same load current even when no input signal is applied so large heatsinks are needed for the output transistors.

However, another simple way to increase the current handling capacity of the circuit while at the same time obtain a greater power gain is to replace the single output transistor with a Darlington Transistor. These types of devices are basically two transistors within a single package, one small "pilot" transistor and another larger "switching" transistor. The big advantage of these devices are that the input impedance is suitably large while the output impedance is relatively low, thereby reducing the power loss and therefore the heat within the switching device.

Darlington Transistor Configurations

The overall current gain Beta (β) or hfe value of a Darlington device is the product of the two individual gains of the transistors multiplied together and very high β values along with high Collector currents are possible compared to a single transistor circuit.

To improve the full power efficiency of the Class A amplifier it is possible to design the circuit with a transformer connected directly in the Collector circuit to form a circuit called a Transformer Coupled Amplifier. The transformer improves the efficiency of the amplifier by matching the impedance of the load with that of the amplifiers output using the turns ratio ( n ) of the transformer and an example of this is given below.

Transformer-coupled Amplifier Circuit

As the Collector current, Ic is reduced to below the quiescent Q-point set up by the base bias voltage, due to variations in the base current, the magnetic flux in the transformer core collapses causing an induced emf in the transformer primary windings. This causes an instantaneous collector voltage to rise to a value of twice the supply voltage 2Vcc giving a maximum collector current of twice Ic when the Collector voltage is at its minimum. Then the efficiency of this type of Class A amplifier configuration can be calculated as follows.

The r.m.s. Collector voltage is given as:

The r.m.s. Collector current is given as:

The r.m.s. Power delivered to the load (Pac) is therefore given as:

The average power drawn from the supply (Pdc) is given by:

and therefore the efficiency of a Transformer-coupled Class A amplifier is given as:

While the transformer improves the efficiency of the amplifier by matching the impedance of the load with that of the amplifiers output impedance, using the turns ratio of an output signal transformer, efficiencies reaching 40% are possible with most commercially available Class-A type power amplifiers being of this type of configuration, but the use of inductive components is best avoided. Also one big disadvantage of this type of circuit is the additional cost and size of the audio transformer required.

The type of "Class" or classification that an amplifier is given really depends upon the conduction angle, the portion of the 360^o of the input waveform cycle, in which the transistor is conducting. In the Class A amplifier the conduction angle is a full 360^o or 100% of the input signal while in other amplifier classes the transistor conducts during a lesser conduction angle.

It is possible to obtain greater power output and efficiency than that of the Class A amplifier by using two complementary transistors in the output stage with one transistor being an NPN or N-channel type while the other transistor is a PNP or P-channel (the complement) type connected in what is called a "push-pull" configuration. This type of configuration is generally called a Class B Amplifier and is another type of audio amplifier circuit that we will look at in the next tutorial.

Amplifier Distortion Navigation

From the previous tutorials we learnt that for a signal amplifier to operate correctly without any distortion to the output signal, it requires some form of DC Bias on its Base or Gate terminal so that it can amplify the input signal over its entire cycle with the bias "Q-point" set as near to the middle of the load line as possible. This then gave us a "Class-A" type amplification configuration with the most common arrangement being the "Common Emitter" for Bipolar transistors and the "Common Source" for unipolar FET transistors.

We also learnt that the Power, Voltage or Current Gain, (amplification) provided by the amplifier is the ratio of the peak output value to its peak input value (Output ÷ Input). However, if we incorrectly design our amplifier circuit and set the biasing Q-point at the wrong position on the load line or apply too large an input signal to the amplifier, the resultant output signal may not be an exact reproduction of the original input signal waveform. In other words the amplifier will suffer from distortion. Consider the common emitter amplifier circuit below.

Common Emitter Amplifier

Distortion of the output signal waveform may take place because:

• 1.  Amplification may not be taking place over the whole signal cycle due to incorrect biasing.
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• 2.  The input signal may be too large, causing the amplifier to be limited by the supply voltage.
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• 3.  The amplification may not be linear over the entire frequency range of inputs.

This means then that during the amplification process of the signal waveform, some form of Amplifier Distortion has occurred.

Amplifiers are basically designed to amplify small voltage input signals into much larger output signals and this means that the output signal is constantly changing by some factor or valu, called gain, multiplied by the input signal for all input frequencies. We saw previously that this multiplication factor is called the Beta, β value of the transistor.

Common emitter or even common source type transistor circuits work fine for small AC input signals but suffer from one major disadvantage, the bias Q-point of a bipolar amplifier depends on the same Beta value which may vary from transistors of the same type, ie. the Q-point for one transistor is not necessarily the same as the Q-point for another transistor of the same type due to the inherent manufacturing tolerances. If this occurs the amplifier may not be linear and Amplitude Distortion will result but careful choice of the transistor and biasing components can minimise the effect of amplifier distortion.

Amplitude Distortion

Amplitude distortion occurs when the peak values of the frequency waveform are attenuated causing distortion due to a shift in the Q-point and amplification may not take place over the whole signal cycle. This non-linearity of the output waveform is shown below.

Amplitude Distortion due to Incorrect Biasing

If the bias is correct the output waveform should look like that of the input waveform only bigger, (amplified). If there is insufficient bias the output waveform will look like the one on the right with the negative part of the output waveform "cut-off". If there is too much bias the output waveform will look like the one on the left with the positive part "cut-off".

When the bias voltage is too small, during the negative part of the cycle the transistor does not conduct fully so the output is set by the supply voltage. When the bias is too great the positive part of the cycle saturates the transistor and the output drops almost to zero.

Even with the correct biasing voltage level set, it is still possible for the output waveform to become distorted due to a large input signal being amplified by the circuits gain. The output voltage signal becomes clipped in both the positive and negative parts of the waveform an no longer resembles a sine wave, even when the bias is correct. This type of amplitude distortion is called Clipping and is the result of "Over-driving" the input of the amplifier.

When the input amplitude becomes too large, the clipping becomes substantial and forces the output waveform signal to exceed the power supply voltage rails with the peak (+ve half) and the trough (-ve half) parts of the waveform signal becoming flattened or "Clipped-off". To avoid this the maximum value of the input signal must be limited to a level that will prevent this clipping effect as shown above.

Amplitude Distortion due to Clipping

Amplitude Distortion greatly reduces the efficiency of an amplifier circuit. These "flat tops" of the distorted output waveform either due to incorrect biasing or over driving the input do not contribute anything to the strength of the output signal at the desired frequency. Having said all that, some well known guitarist and rock bands actually prefer that their distinctive sound is highly distorted or "overdriven" by heavily clipping the output waveform to both the +ve and -ve power supply rails. Also, excessive amounts of clipping can also produce an output which resembles a "square wave" shape which can then be used in electronic or digital circuits.

We have seen that with a DC signal the level of gain of the amplifier can vary with signal amplitude, but as well as Amplitude Distortion, other types of distortion can occur with AC signals in amplifier circuits, such as Frequency Distortion and Phase Distortion.

Frequency Distortion

Frequency Distortion occurs in a transistor amplifier when the level of amplification varies with frequency. Many of the input signals that a practical amplifier will amplify consist of the required signal waveform called the "Fundamental Frequency" plus a number of different frequencies called "Harmonics" superimposed onto it. Normally, the amplitude of these harmonics are a fraction of the fundamental amplitude and therefore have very little or no effect on the output waveform. However, the output waveform can become distorted if these harmonic frequencies increase in amplitude with regards to the fundamental frequency. For example, consider the waveform below:

Frequency Distortion due to Harmonics

In the example above, the input waveform consists a the fundamental frequency plus a second harmonic signal. The resultant output waveform is shown on the right hand side. The frequency distortion occurs when the fundamental frequency combines with the second harmonic to distort the output signal. Harmonics are therefore multiples of the fundamental frequency and in our simple example a second harmonic was used. Therefore, the frequency of the harmonic is 2 times the fundamental, 2 x ƒ or 2ƒ. Then a third harmonic would be 3ƒ, a fourth, 4ƒ, and so on. Frequency distortion due to harmonics is always a possibility in amplifier circuits containing reactive elements such as capacitance or inductance.

Phase Distortion

Phase Distortion or Delay Distortion occurs in a non-linear transistor amplifier when there is a time delay between the input signal and its appearance at the output. If we call the phase change between the input and the output zero at the fundamental frequency, the resultant phase angle delay will be the difference between the harmonic and the fundamental. This time delay will depend on the construction of the amplifier and will increase progressively with frequency within the bandwidth of the amplifier. For example, consider the waveform below:

Phase Distortion due to Delay

Any practical amplifier will have a combination of both "Frequency" and "Phase" distortion together with amplitude distortion but in most applications such as in audio amplifiers or power amplifiers, unless the distortion is excessive or severe it will not generally affect the operation of the system.

In the next tutorial about Amplifiers we will look at the Class A Amplifier. Class A amplifiers are the most common type of amplifier output stage making them ideal for use in audio power amplifiers.

Introduction to the Amplifier Tutorial

In "Electronics", 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. Amplifiers can be thought of as a simple box or block containing the amplifying device, such as a Transistor, Field Effect Transistor or Op-amp, 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".

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 difference between the input and output signals is known as the Gain of the amplifier and 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. Gain is the ratio of output÷input, it has no units 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 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:    a_v  =  20 log Av
•  
•   Current Gain in dB:    a_i  =  20 log Ai
•  
•   Power Gain in dB:      a_p  =  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 Loss within 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).

Amplifier Gain.

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 divide into two distinct types depending upon their power or voltage gain, Small Signal Amplifiers such as pre-amplifiers, instrumentation amplifiers etc, which are designed to amplify very small signal voltage levels of only a few micro-volts (μV) from sensors or audio signals and Large Signal Amplifiers such as audio power amplifiers or switching amplifiers, which are designed to amplify large input voltage signals or switch heavy load currents.

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 classes of operation 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 efficiencies for the various types or class of amplifier, with the most commonly used being:

• Class A   -   has low efficiency of less than 40% but good signal reproduction and linearity.
•  
• Class B   -   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   -   has an efficiency rating between that of Class A and Class B but poorer signal reproduction than class A amplifiers.
•  
• Class C   -   is the most efficient 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 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 DC 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 pure Class A amplifier is very inefficient as most of the DC power is converted to heat.

Class B 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 (an NPN and a PNP) 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 current 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 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 Angle	360o	180o	Less than 90o	180 to 360o
Position of the Q-point	Centre Point of the Load Line	Exactly on the X-axis	Below the X-axis	In between the X-axis and the Centre Load Line
Overall Efficiency	Poor, 25 to 30%	Better, 70 to 80%	Higher than 80%	Better than A but less than B 50 to 70%
Signal Distortion	None if Correctly Biased	At the X-axis Crossover Point	Large Amounts	Small Amounts

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 B amplifier 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.