Swamping of a Common Emitter Amplifier

The term swamping refers to the practice of having the emitter capacitor CE , referred to as a bypass
capacitor, connected in parallel with only a portion of the total resistance in the emitter lead of the
transistor amplifier. The diagram below shows a Common Emitter amplifier with a swamping capacitor.
The 100 is the swamping portion of the total emitter resistance of 1100 .

The DC bias voltages and currents are:

VB = 2.12 V VE = 1.42 V IE = IC = 1.29 mA

VC = 10 V 4.26 V = 5.74 v VCE = 5.74 V 1.42 V = 4.32 V

The AC dynamic emitter resistance re = 25 mV/IE = 19.4

Recall that the value of re (like ) varies from transistor to transistor and is also sensitive to changes in
temperature.

Lets assume for purposes of this handout that re varies from 15 to 25 . The table below summarizes
the effect of a changing re on the voltage gain of the amplifier under different swamping conditions.

The voltage gain AV = - RC||RL / (re + RE) where RE is that part of the emitter resistance
that is not in parallel with CE. It is the swamped value of RE.
re value AV - no CE - fully AV - CE present - AV - CE present - no
swamped partially swamped swamping
RE value = 1100 RE value = 100 RE value = 0
15 2.22 21.6 165
19.4 2.22 20.8 128
25 2.20 19.8 99.2
% variation 1 % % variation = 9.1 % % variation = 66 %

DC and AC grounds

The DC ground point is at the bottom of the emitter resistor. With the CE capacitor connected the
circuit now has an AC ground point at the top of the CE capacitor shorts AC signal to ground.

Swamping the AC dynamic emitter resistance re has two effects

Reduces the voltage gain

Reduces the variability of voltage gain from one circuit to another stabilizes the voltage gain