Feedback and Oscillator Circuits

Feedback Concept
The phenomenon of feeding a portion of the output signal back to the input circuit
is known as feedback. The effect results an effective control can be obtained in the
working of the circuit. Feedback is of two types.
Depending on the relative polarity of the signal being fed back into a circuit, two
types of feedback are introduced: Negative feedback and Positive feedback.
Negative feedback: In this type, the feedback signal (voltage or current) opposes
the input signal. Negative feedback reduces gain of the amplifier and has the
following advantages:
1- reduces distortion and noise, 2- increases stability, 3- increases bandwidth
and 4- improves input and output impedances (increased or decreased
according to the application).
Due to these advantages, the negative feedback is frequently used in amplifiers.
Negative Feedback has been mentioned previously in op-amp circuits. A typical
feedback connection is shown in Fig. 1 . The input signal Vs is applied to a
difference block, where it is combined with a feedback signal Vf to produce Vi
which is then the input signal to the amplifier (A). A portion of the amplifier output
Vo is connected to the feedback block (ꞵ), which provides a negative feedback
signal to the difference block.

Figure 1
Positive feedback: In this type, the feedback signal (voltage or currents), is in
phase with the input signal and thus aids it. Positive feedback increases gain of the
amplifier also increases distortion, noise and instability. Because of these
disadvantages, positive feedback is not employed in amplifiers. But the positive
feedback is used in oscillators.

Gian of Amplifier with Negative Feedback

Where, A: gain of the amplifier, ꞵ: feedback ratio, Af: feedback gain.

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Feedback Connection Types
Depending on the input signal (voltage or current) to be amplified and feedback
form of the output (voltage or current), amplifiers can be classified into four types:
series-shunt, series-series, shunt-shunt, or shunt-series.
1. Series-Shunt feedback or voltage series

Figure above shows the Series-Shunt feedback connection with a part of the output voltage fed
back in series with the input voltage.
The voltage gain of the amplifier stage is:

………….. (1)
Equation (1) shows that the gain with feedback is reduced by the factor (1+ꞵA).
Input Impedance with Feedback

The input impedance is increased by the factor (1+ꞵA ).

Output Impedance with Feedback

The output impedance is reduced by the factor (1+ꞵA ).

2. Shunt -Series Feedback or current shunt

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3. Series- Series Feedback or current series

4. Shunt- Shunt Feedback or voltage-shunt

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Summary of Equations