ac current gain With a transistor, the ratio of ac collector current to ac base current.

ac emitter resistance The ac base-emitter voltage divided by the ac emitter current. This value is normally listed
' 25 mV
as r’e and can be calculated by r e= . This value is important when determining the input impedance and
IE
gain of a BJT amplifier.

ac-equivalent circuit All that remains when you reduce the dc sources to zero and short all capacitors.

ac ground A node that is bypassed to ground through a capacitor. Such a node will show no ac voltage when it is
probed by an oscilloscope, but it will indicate a dc voltage when it is measured with a voltmeter.

ac short A coupling capacitor or bypass capacitor can be treated as an ac short if its capacitive reactance XC is
less than 1/10 of the resistance R. This can be stated mathematically a s XC < 0.1R.

bypass capacitor A capacitor used to ground a node.

CB amplifier An amplifier configuration in which the input signal is fed into the emitter terminal and the output
signal is taken from the collector terminal.

CC amplifier An amplifier configuration in which the input signal is fed into the base terminal and the output
signal is taken from the emitter terminal. Also called emitter follower.

CE amplifier The most widely applied amplifier configuration, in which the input signal is fed into the base
terminal and the output signal is taken from the collector circuit.

coupling capacitor A capacitor used to transmit an ac signal from one node to another.

dc-equivalent circuit What remains after you open all capacitors.

distortion An undesirable change in the shape or phase of a waveform or signal. When this happens in an
amplifier, the output waveform is not a true replica of the input waveform.

Ebers-Moll model An early ac model of a transistor also known as the T model.

small-signal amplifier This type of amplifier is used at the front end of receivers because the signal coming in is
very weak. (The peak-topeak emitter current is less than 10 percent of the dc emitter current.)

superposition When you have several sources, you can determine the effect produced by each source acting
alone and then add the individual effects to get the total effect of all sources acting simultaneously.

T model An ac model of a transistor that looks like a T on its side. The emitter diode acts like an ac resistance,
and the collector diode acts like a current source.

voltage gain This is defined as the output voltage divided by the input voltage. Its value indicates how much the
signal is amplified.