EEE – 313

ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT DESIGN

TERM PROJECT

OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

21.12.2015

GAMZE GÜL SEC-02

Abstract

In this project, we design a communication device which is constructed by several

components which are the base components for electronic circuit design. This is not an ordinary

project as the normal communication devices because it transmits audio signal via optical waves.

Since optical part is handled by laser diode and photo diode, our purpose is to send a pure

amplified signal to laser diode and after optical transmission, reproduce the high-powered

original signal in order to send it to the speaker. Therefore, we constructed amplifier and filter

circuits with proper output values. Simulation results proves that our design satisfies the required

conditions. By adding some extra specifications, this project can be improved further.

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................... 4
Technical Specifications ................................................................................................................ 5
Transmitter ................................................................................................................................ 5
Receiver ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Simulation Results ......................................................................................................................... 8
Experimental Results ................................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................... 21
References .................................................................................................................................... 22

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List of Figures
Figure 1 - Parts of the transmitter ................................................................................................... 5
Figure 2 - Ac equivalent circuit ...................................................................................................... 6
Figure 3 - Receiver.......................................................................................................................... 8
Figure 4 - First amplifier in transmitter .......................................................................................... 9
Figure 5 - Load current ................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 6 - The gain of first amplifier after it is connected to rest of the circuit ........................... 10
Figure 7 - Load current with Vin = 10mV and Vdd = 17V .......................................................... 11
Figure 8 - Load current withVin = 10mV and Vdd = 23V ........................................................... 11
Figure 9 - Load current with Vin = 1V and Vdd= 23V ................................................................ 12
Figure 10 - Load current with Vin = 1V and Vdd= 17V .............................................................. 12
Figure 11 - Input and output voltages for receiver ....................................................................... 13
Figure 12 - Output of the common emitter amplifier ................................................................... 14
Figure 13 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 40mV and 1kHz .................... 14
Figure 14 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 200mV and 1kHz .................. 15
Figure 15 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 2V and 1kHz ......................... 15
Figure 16 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 4V and 1kHz ......................... 16
Figure 17 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 200mV and 10kHz ................ 16
Figure 18 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 2V and 10kHz ....................... 17
Figure 19 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 4V and 10kHz ....................... 17
Figure 20 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 2V and 1kHz .......................... 18
Figure 21 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 4V and 1kHz ......................... 18
Figure 22 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 2V and 10kHz ....................... 19
Figure 23 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 4V and 10kHz ....................... 19
Figure 24 - Receiver output when input is 200mV and 10kHz .................................................... 20
Figure 25 - Receiver output when input is 1V and 10kHz ........................................................... 20

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Introduction
Aim of this project is to transmit audio signal via optical resources and receive the
corresponding signal to listen to it through the speaker. In order to design this system, we have
divided the system into two parts, one of them is transmitter and the other one is receiver.

Transmitter part of the system mainly consists of combination of amplifier circuits due to
the low amplitude signal coming from the audio source. Since we are not allowed to use any
active component except transistors in transmitter part, we have decided to design two amplifiers
consisting of bipolar junction transistors. Main reason of choosing bipolar junction transistors is
that BJT’s give more consistent results compared to the other transistor types. First amplifier that
we used is a common emitter amplifier which provides voltage gain and the second amplifier is
an emitter follower amplifier which acts as a buffer in the circuit and provides current gain which
will be supplied to the laser diode.

Receiver part of the system consists of three parts. Since we are not restricted to use any
components in this part, we used op-amps in addition to the transistors. Main part of the receiver
is again a voltage amplifier designed with an op-amp. Since we know that after the transmission
process, huge amount of power will be dissipated from the signal that we transmit. So we used
this voltage amplifier.

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Technical Specifications

Transmitter

In transmitter part, in order to send the signal through the laser diode, first of all the
signal has to be amplified since input signal may not have enough amplitude to be sent. In order
to amplify signal, by using BC238B bjt transistors, we have designed a common emitter
amplifier to increase the voltage gain.

Figure 1 - Parts of the transmitter

According to resistor values we can manage the gain considering voltage swing.In
common emitter amplifier part, we have decided to set our voltage gain as 5. For this type of
amplifiers, voltage gain is equal to -R4/(R3+re) and re value is a very little value which can be
neglected. So, we have -R4/R3 which is -5.1K/1K = -5.1.However, this amplifier is not sufficient
to operate the laser diode because the current going to the laser is very low. We decided to
design a emitter follower amplifier after common emitter amplifier for current gain. Since the
laser diode has 10-16mA threshold current value and 45-46mA maximum current limit,
amplified current that flows through the laser diode have to be between 10-46mA.

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 Before the design we measured the VBE,ON and β values so that the calculations satisfies
the real behaviours of the BC238B/ZTX. We measured VBE,ON as 1V and β as 237. We will use
these values in calculations.

To design this circuit we should look at the whole circuit as a multistage one. However,
we hold the common emitter as voltage amplifier. If we look at the DC equivalent circuit of the
common emitter we found IBQ as 3.33µA and rπ can be calculated like following

𝑛𝑉𝑇
𝑟𝜋 = (1)
𝐼𝐵𝑄

where n = 1 and VT = 26 mV. rπ is equal to 7.8 KΩ.

In the second part, we have dc equivalent circuit of the emitter follower amplifier. In that
circuit,we should find the Thevenin equivalent circuit for the VB and RB. IBQ is equal to

VB - VBE,ON = RB x IBQ + RE x IBQ(β+1)

IBQ is calculated as 1.7 µA and the rπ can be found as 15KΩ by Equation 1.

Then we pass the ac analysis of the circuit. The ac equivalent circuit is following.

VA

Figure 2 - Ac equivalent circuit

The equations can be derived for this figure are following.

𝑉𝑖𝑛 = 𝑖𝑏1 × 𝑟𝜋1 (2)

𝑉𝑜 = (𝛽 + 1)𝑖𝑏2 × (𝑅𝐸2 ‖𝑅𝐿 ) (3)

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 We can write node equation for VA. We obtained following equation for currents.

𝛽 × 𝑖𝑏1 × (𝑅5 ‖𝑅6 ) = 𝑖𝑏1 × (𝑟𝜋2 + (𝑅5 ‖𝑅6 ) + (𝛽 + 1)(𝑅𝐸2 ‖𝑅𝐿 )) (4)

If we put the Equation 2 and 3 into Equation 4, we can obtain voltage gain.
𝑉0 (𝑅5 ‖𝑅6 )×(𝑅𝐸2 ‖𝑅𝐿 )×𝛽×(𝛽+1)
=𝑟
𝑉𝑖𝑛 𝜋1 ×(𝑟𝜋2 + (𝑅5 ‖𝑅6 )+ (𝛽+1)(𝑅𝐸2 ‖𝑅𝐿 ))

This equation give us to voltage gain and the current will divide into two in the output of
the emitter follower amplifier.

Except from these two parts, we have extra capacitors. In common emitter amplifier, we
have bypass capacitor. This will increase gain in ac analysis but dc analysis provides dc stability
which actually means independence of transistor characteristics.

The other one is decoupling capacitor, this reduces the effect of dc components in ac
analysis and we connect them parallel to the VDD.

The values of the capacitor are chosen according to frequency response such that
transistor can work in midband. When the frequency is so small or large, these capacitors can
affect the gain.

Receiver
In receiver part, we should satisfy some conditions to obtain a good sound from speaker.
First of all we should use a receiver to obtain current or voltage from light. It can be photo diode
or phototransistor. Ourdesign includes a phototransistor which will give miliamperes. The
resistance of our speaker is 4 ohm and the maximum power is 5 watt, we will have to give
hundreds of milliampsto hear sounds.

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Figure 3 - Receiver

As shown in Figure 2, we have transistor which represents the photo transistor that we
used BPW77NB. It has three terminals but we did not use base terminal. It can be used as
sensitivity control as we learnt. It gives typically 20mA. We cannot model it by LTSpicealthough
it worked experimentally. Therefore, we placed a voltage source in LTspice for simulations for
the rest of the circuit.

After phototransistor, we should increase voltage gain because before we obtain current
gain for speaker, voltage must be higher than input voltage which is very small. This system
looks like common emitter and common collector but instead of transistor we used op-amp since
it does not need much power and requires pretty fewer components to design.

In the experiment we consider the temperature and the flexibility of voltage supply. After
our designs we make small differences according to simulation results which we will
demonstrate in following sections.

Simulation Results

Simulation Results For Transmitter:

Transmitter part consists of two main amplifiers, first one is to produce voltage gain and
second one is to produce current gain in order to supply needed current to the laser diode. First
lets look at the voltage gain of the first amplifier.

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Figure 4 - First amplifier in transmitter

At the end of the first amplifier we have 5 voltage gain. If we think that the current will
be lower than the current that drives laser, we should need current gain. So, we have an emitter
follower amplifier in order to increase the current gain. Let’s look at the current at the output.

Figure 5 - Load current

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 In this circuit we have a 5 V voltage supply. We do not have it in the circuit that we
placed on the breadboard. However, we cannot model laser diode, so in order to simulate our
circuits in LTSpice we design the circuit so that components’ behaviors satisfy the real
components in the circuit.

Figure 6 - The gain of first amplifier after it is connected to rest of the circuit

When we look at the gain of the common emitter part, we’ll see that gain is no more 5. It
becomes 3 however this is the result that we expected after the rest of the circuit is connected.
However, decline in the gain is not important for us as the current gain is enough to drive laser.

We have 30mA peak-to-peak current and our current is appropriate to current operation
range of the laser diode which is 10mA-46mA for all specified temperatures.

Now, we have to consider whether our circuit works in +-%15 DC supply range or not.
Also we have to consider so little AC inputs like 10mV coming from the audio device. We will
look at all these conditions one by one. First let’s look what happens when AC input is 10mV
and DC source is 17V.

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Figure 7 - Load current with Vin = 10mV and Vdd = 17V

Our current on the laser diode is appropriate for laser diodes operating current range for
all specified temperatures, so there is no problem. Now, let’s consider the 10mV AC input and
23V DC input.

Figure 8 - Load current withVin = 10mV and Vdd = 23V

Again our current on the laser diode is appropriate for laser diodes operating current
range for all specified temperatures, so there is also no problem. Now let’s consider the 1V AC
input coming from audio source and 23V DC input.

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Figure 9 - Load current with Vin = 1V and Vdd= 23V

Again our current on the laser diode is appropriate for laser diodes operating current
range for all specified temperatures, so there is also no problem. Lastly, let’s look at the output
current when we have 1V AC input and 17V DC input.

Figure 10 - Load current with Vin = 1V and Vdd= 17V

Our circuit also works fine for this condition. So, transmitter part of our circuit satisfies
all of the conditions that are wanted from us.

Simulation Results For Receiver:

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 As we indicated in Technical Specification part, we cannot directly model photo
transistor. To simulate it, we will use a voltage source since the voltage will be determined by
the photo transistor and the rest of the circuit will amplify this voltage for the load.

Figure 11 - Input and output voltages for receiver

The important thing is avoiding saturation for op-amps. As it is seen in the figure, when
we get 500mA peak-to-peak voltage as an input, we will get 5.5Volts at the output since for this
non-inverting op-amp gain configuration, the output gain is Av = (1+R1/R2) which is Av =
(1+10K/1K) = 11.

Experimental Results

The experimental results are not same with the simulation results. In some part, we
obtained better result compared to the simulation results and some parts do not satisfy the
conditions at first. However, the latest version of the setup gave the following results. Let’s look
at the output of the common emitter amplifier.

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Figure 12 - Output of the common emitter amplifier

As shown in Figure 10, after first amplifier the signal is very noisy and both the
amplitude and frequency cannot determined properly. The following results will be in average
mode of the oscilloscope to understand amplitude of the output.

Voltage gain of the common emitter amplifier is expected to be 3. The result will be
according to input of 40mV, 200 mV, 2mV and 4mV peak to peak. These ac sinusoidal signals
will be 1kHz and 10kHz to cover a wide range in both amplitude and frequency.

Figure 13 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 40mV and 1kHz

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Figure 14 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 200mV and 1kHz

Figure 15 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 2V and 1kHz

1 kHz sinusoidal inputs will be amplified with gain 3. However when magnitude of the
signal increase, the gain is decreasing according to figures. That is caused by the average mode
of the oscilloscope. If we ignore it, the gain of the experimental result satisfies the results that we
found in simulations for 1 kHz.

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Figure 16 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 4V and 1kHz

For 4V input signal, the gain is small than other three input voltages. It is saturated
because transistor becomes OFF. Our symmetric voltage swing is smaller than 4V. However, we
won’t have input voltage as large as 4V.

Let’s also look at the outputs of the 10 kHz.

Figure 17 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 200mV and 10kHz

The output of the 10 kHz signal is slightly different than the 1kHz. The reason behind is
the frequency response of the circuit. We cannot assume the capacitors short circuit in ac
analysis since their impedances influence the gain.

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Figure 18 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 2V and 10kHz

Figure 19 - Output of the common emitter when input voltage is 4V and 10kHz

The results of the common emitter are slightly different than we expected. The reasons
will be discussed in conclusion part.

Emitter follower result is the voltage that goes to load. The load current will depends on
the load voltage by the ratio of load resistor. Let’s look at the load voltages.

We expected to see almost 2.5 as gain. This explains how emitter follower behaves like a
buffer.

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Figure 20 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 2V and 1kHz

When we compared Figure 13 and Figure 18, we can see the decrease in voltage. The
gain of the emitter follower is slightly less than 1, so we can obtain almost same voltage as the
output of the common emitter amplifier.

Figure 21 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 4V and 1kHz

In this step also saturation region will increase. However, 4V is still a huge amount of voltage for
audio input of the transmitter.

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Figure 22 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 2V and 10kHz

The output of the emitter follower is 4.64V although the output of the common emitter amplifier
is 5.44V as shown in Figure 18.

Figure 23 - Output of the emitter follower when input voltage is 4V and 10kHz

As a result we can drive the laser in its operating current.

However, the receiver part is not suitable to get result because it is hard to make laser point to
photo transistor. However, the results are following.

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Figure 24 - Receiver output when input is 200mV and 10kHz

When the input is 200mV peak to peak, the receiver output can be seen properly.

Figure 25 - Receiver output when input is 1V and 10kHz

When the input becomes 2V peak to peak, we cannot make the laser point to the
phototransistor and we obtained such strange waves. To move laser or phototransistor changes
the shape of these waves. This looks like a problem but when two part of this system properly
placed, the sounds can be generated without any problem except noise. The noise issue will be
discussed in the conclusion.

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Conclusion
To sum up, simulation result are slightly different from our calculation. Main reason of
these errors, during the design of this project, we fixed the characteristics of the transistors and
op-amps. Moreover, assumptions that we make while making the calculations of amplifiers’
parameters were just to simplify the calculations and this method is used commonly. At the
beginning of the design because we did not know the operating current and voltage properties of
the laser diode and the photo diode, we take these values as simple as possible. After simulation
results did not fit with the calculation results, so we rearranged the values of some resistors and
capacitors.

In experimental work, we faced two problems which are frequency response and noise.
The frequency response is not totally disadvantageous but our audio input will include different
frequency components, so the gain will be different for those. However they are actually mainly
focusing the midband that we generate by choosing the capacitances. To analyze1kHz and
10kHz provide us to experience frequency response of a circuit when we see the different gains
for each frequency value.

Another problem is noise. We design a filter with op-amp but it did not work because of
the conditions of the op-amps. We think that design a filter does not give so much to us. We
prefer less power consumption instead of hearing sounds without noise. This must be the future
improvements of our design.

This was the first time that we design an electronic circuit. This work provided us to
optimize many things at the same time. We care about power dissipation, quality of the
transmission, stability of the amplifications and cost of the whole circuit. When we organize this
optimization, we analyze the results in different conditions such as fluctuation in dc voltage
supply and different temperature values.

Especially, we had a chance to revise our knowledge about transistors which is a new
concept for us. Another new concept that we learned is designing the PCB layout of the
corresponding circuit. By following the instructions, PCB layout was easy to be completed.

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References

MIT OpenCourse, Circuit and Electronics. MIT, 10 Nov. 2015.

<http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-002-circuits-

and-electronics-spring-2007/>

Neamen, Donald A.Microelectronics Circuit Analysis and Design. New York,McGraw-

Hill.2010.

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