Electronics III (Spring 2020)

Midterm Examination (I)

[Total 100 pts. Close book, Close notes, Calculator is allowed to use]
1. (15 pts.) Please give brief answer for the following questions. (3pts. each)
(1) (True, False) An engineer uses shunt-series negative feedback to extend the bandwidth of a
current amplifier — this will also increase the output resistance.
(2) The value of input resistance should be (zero, unity, infinity, Unpredictable) for an ideal
transresistance amplifier circuit.
(3) An op-amp has an open-loop gain of 120 dB and an input resistance of 50 MΩ. An engineer
wants to use negative feedback to obtain an amplifier with input resistance of 5 GΩ. What
is the closed-loop gain (in dB) of the feedback amplifier?
(4) A source-degenerated common-source amplifier can be seen as a
transconductance amplifier with resistive feedback (Rs). What is
the output resistance (seen on Y) for the open-loop
transconductance amplifier? Assume the transconductance of the
MOSFET is gm, and its output resistance ro is infinity here.
(5) Follow (4), what is the closed-loop output resistance (seen on Y)?

2. (10 pts.) [Gain and Phase Margins]

The open loop gain A(f) of an amplifier is
shown in Fig. P2. The amplifier is used with
negative feedback and its DC closed-loop
gain is 1,000. What are the phase margin and
gain margin? Is the feedback-amplifier
stable? Please explain how you obtain the
answer.

Fig. P2

3. (20 pts.) [Systematic Analysis of Feedback Circuits] Consider the circuit shown in Fig. P3, please
employ the systematic analysis method which we discussed in the class to obtain the voltage gain
Vo/Vs, the input resistance Rin, and the output resistance Rout. Find numerical values for the
case gm1 = gm2 = 4 mA/V, RD1 = RD2 = 10 k, R1 = 1 k, and R2 = 9 k. For simplicity, neglect
ro (ro = )

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 Fig. P3

4. (20 pts.) [Frequency Compensation] An op amp with an open-loop voltage gain of 80 dB and
poles at 105 Hz, 106 Hz, and 2  106 Hz is to be compensated to be stable for unity . Assume that
the op amp incorporates an amplifier equivalent to that in Fig. P4, with C1 = 150 pF, C2 = 5 pF,
and gm = 40 mA/V, and that fp1 is caused by the input circuit and fp2 by the output circuit of this
amplifier. Assume that R1 and C1 represent the total resistance and capacitance between node G
and ground, and R2 and C2 represent the total resistance and capacitance between node D and
ground, although they are not depicted here. If the target phase margin is 45, please find the
required value of the compensating Miller capacitance and the new frequency of the output pole.

Fig. P4

5. (15 pts.) [Power Conversion Efficiency of a Class-B Circuit]

(a) The power efficiency () of a output stage is defined by .
𝐿𝑜𝑎𝑑 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 (𝑃𝐿 )
𝜂 ≡ 𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑦 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 (𝑃𝑆 )

Please prove that the maximum power conversion efficiency of a

Class-B circuit, as depicted in Fig. P5, is 78.5%. Assume the
crossover distortion can be neglected. Assume that the output
voltage is sinusoid with a peak value of 𝑉̂𝑜 . (10 pts.)
(b) Follow (a), what are the reasons that the average current is used
to obtain the supply power (PS), but the RMS value is used to Fig. P5
obtain the load power (PL). (5 pts.)

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6 (20 pts.) [Using Diode to Bias the Class-AB Circuit] (5pts. each)
(a) Will the collect current increase or decrease if the temperature increases and the voltage
across the base-emitter junction (VBE) is held constant for a bipolar transistor? Why? (5 pts.)
(b) Please illustrate what is the thermal runaway phenomenon for a Class AB circuit as shown
in Fig. P6B. Assume that the “Base” nodes of QN and QP are biased at two constant voltages.
(c) For a class AB circuit which is biased through a pair of diodes as shown in Fig. P6C, the
thermal runaway phenomenon will be suppressed. Why?
(d) Follow (b), if a pair of resistors are connected between the “Emitter” and output nodes as
shown in Fig. P6D, the thermal runaway phenomenon will be suppressed. Why?

Fig. P6B Fig. P6C Fig. P6D