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Project Notes

#389 Two-stage Common Emitter Amplifier

Designing a two-stage common-emitter BJT amplifier.

Build

Notes

Cascading two common-emitter amplifiers is a means of achieving high voltage gain. Voltage gains from several hundred to several thousand are possible.

I’m going to try and noodle out a theoretical design of a two-stage Class A amplifier, and then test the actual performance. Do not take my calculations as gospel. My main sources for the theory were Electronic Principles by Albert Paul Malvino and a Multistage Transistor Amplifiers YouTube tutorial by The Offset Volt:

clip

Designing a Single Stage for Gain ~ 10

Parameter Design/Spec Value
A (gain) 10
Vcc 9V
Icq 4mA
Vceq 4.5V
ß (hFE) 100 - 400
hie 1kΩ - 10kΩ
Vbe 0.7V
RL 2.2kΩ

Also:

  • r’e = hie/hFE = 10kΩ/400 = 25Ω

Calculate collector + emmiter resistance for desired gain at the Q point

  • Rc + Re = (Vcc - Vceq) / Icq
  • Rc + Re = (9V - 4.5V)/4mA = 1.13kΩ
  • assuming A ≅ Rc/Re
  • Re = 1.13kΩ - Rc
  • Re = 1.13kΩ/11 =100Ω
  • Rc = 1.03kΩ, say 1kΩ

With the selected components, the theoretical gain is thus 10

Calculate the combined bias gang resistance

Base current at the q point

  • Ib = 4mA / 100 = 0.04mA

Assume current through the gang at 10 x Ib as a rule of thumb to ensure “stiff” biasing i.e. 0.4 mA

So combined resistance = 22.5kΩ

Calculate the resistance of R1 and R2 components of the bias gang

Lower resistor R2:

voltage = 0.7 + Ic x Re = 1.1V

therefore R2 = 2.75kΩ say 3kΩ (standard value)

and therefore R1 = 19.5kΩ say 20kΩ (standard value)

Measure Performance - Single Stage

single-stage-bb-test

With 0.2V peak-peak 10kHz input, and Re = 100Ω (without emitter bypass), measured results:

  • 0.2V input peak-peak
  • 1.98V output peak-peak
  • actual gain = 9.9

Conclusion: very close to design gain of 10, undistorted Class A performance.

single-stage-10kHz

Adjusting Single Stage Design with Bypass

I decided to add another 100Ω/100µF emitter bypass to the design, for a few reasons:

  • it’s a common feature of such designs
  • it provides negative feedback to stabilise for transistor variations (AC signals will vary the emitter resistance with inverse relationship to input/output differential, thus combating variation)
  • reduces the gain a bit (so I can work with larger input signals in two-stage configuration while staying within the 9V supply limits)

Recalculating with this variation. DC characteristics are now:

  • Re = 200Ω
  • A ≅ Rc/Re = 1kΩ/200Ω = 5

combined base bias resistance should still be = 22.5kΩ

Lower resistor R2 is now:

voltage = 0.7 + Ic x Re = 1.5V

therefore R2 = 3.75kΩ say 3.6kΩ (standard value)

and therefore R1 = 18.9kΩ say 20kΩ (standard value)

Calculating Two-stage Performance with RL load

With:

  • component values duplicated the from the single-stage design for two stages
  • with the extra 100Ω||100µF emitter bypass
  • and RL = 2.2kΩ

predicted performance calculated as follows:

DC analysis:

  • Vb = Vcc*Rb2/(Rb1 + Rb2) = 9V * 3.6kΩ/(20kΩ + 3.6kΩ) = 1.37V
  • Ve = Vb - 0.7V = 0.67V
  • Ie = Ve/Re = 0.67V/(200Ω) = 3.35mA
  • Ie ≅ Ic
  • Vrc = Ic * Rc = 3.35mA * 1kΩ = 3.35V
  • Vce = Vcc - (Vrc + Ve) = 9V - (3.35V + 0.67V) = 4.98V
  • Isat = Vcc/(Re + Rc) = 9V/(200Ω + 1kΩ) = 7.5mA

Second stage:

  • assuming thermal voltage VT = kT/q = 25 mV
  • r’ej = VT/Ie = 7.5Ω
  • A2 = Rc||RL/(Re2 + r'ej) = 1k||2.2kΩ/(100Ω + 7.5Ω) = 6.4
  • Rin(base) = ß(Re2 + r’ej) = 100(100Ω + 7.5Ω) = 10.75kΩ
  • Zin = Rin(base)||Rb1||Rb2 = 10.75kΩ||20kΩ||3.6kΩ = 2.38kΩ
  • A1 = Rc1||Zin/(Re1 + r'ej) = 1kΩ||2.38kΩ/(100Ω + 7.5Ω) = 6.55
  • Total gain A = A1 * A2 = 6.4 * 6.55 = 41.92

Assuming headroom for say 7V peak-peak, input limit would be around 0.17V peak-peak before clipping.

Measure Performance - Two Stage

With 0.1V peak-peak 10kHz input, and Re = 200Ω (with 100Ω/100µF bypass), measured results:

  • 0.1V input peak-peak
  • 3.88V output peak-peak
  • actual gain = 38.8 = 31.8 dB
  • error in the theoretical gain calc = 7%

Conclusion: predicted performance was quite close to the actual performance. And .. I have a functioning two-stage Class A amplifier to boot, with performance “in the ballpark” of the design.

two-stage-10kHz

Performance With an Ugly-style Build

TwoStageCommonEmitterAmplifier_ugly

With an ugly-style build, I see even better performance, and improved gain:

  • 0.1V input peak-peak
  • 4.32V output peak-peak
  • actual gain = 43.2 = 32.71 dB
  • error in the theoretical gain calc = -3%

More gain when built “properly”, this time overshooting estimates by a small margin (less than the tolerance on components).

single-stage-ugly-10kHz

At 400kHz, perfromance is maintained:

single-stage-ugly-400kHz

Construction

Breadboard

Schematic

Testing on a breadboard:

TwoStageCommonEmitterAmplifier_bb_build

Testing with an ugly-style build:

TwoStageCommonEmitterAmplifier_build

Credits and References

About LEAP#389 BJTAmplifier
Project Source on GitHub Project Gallery Return to the LEAP Catalog

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

LEAP is just my personal collection of projects, usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting (IMHO!).

The projects are usually inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the sources such as:

Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know. See the individual projects for credits where due. There are even now a few projects contributed by others - send your own over in a pull request if you would also like to add to this collection.