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Designing a transistor amplifier. Part A.

Posted on September 3, 2015by alexkaltsas

Lets design an audio amplifier, using discrete transistors, in order to amplify the low level output of a device. For example the
output of the demodulation stage of radio receiver, a microphone, etc. First thing all. The requirements for our amplifier:

 9 volts supply voltage.

 Voltage gain (preamplifier stage) of at least 100.
 Driving a small 16 Ohm speaker with a voltage of 5 Vp-p.
 Bandwidth from 50 Hz to 22 kHz.

The following is intended as an educational aid and not a professional effort.

Preamplifier Stage.
First of all, now that we have established our requirements, we must take some decisions for our amplifier. We need a
preamplifier with gain of at least 100. The big gain we need drives as to the conclusion that the preamplifier stage will be
a Common Emitter (CE) amplifier. Bellow we can see the preamplifier circuit.
The transistor, Q1, we are going to use is the BC547B. We will consider that this transistor has a current
gain β (H or beta) equal to 100 (worst case scenario). The Collector-Emitter voltage of BC547Β, when saturated is
fe

V =0,2 volts (for a specific collector current). The Base-Emitter voltage for BC547Β is V =0,6 volts. All the above numbers
CE(SAT) BE

comes directly form BC547B’s datasheet.

We must calculate the values of R1,R2,RC,RE and C1. C1 controls the upper side of the bandwidth. Cin and Cout are
used to couple in the ac signal. A value of 100 μF is a good enough value for those capacitors. The CE capacitor grounds the ac
signal and increases the ac gain of the amplifier. Also controls the low side of the bandwidth. Generally speaking we need this
capacitor as large as possible. For our needs, a value of 220 μF is good enough.
Before we start calculating values we must make a decision for the Collector current, I . BC547Β has a max collector current of
C

100 mA. For continuous operation we should use a collector current 10 times lower of the max collector current. We could select
10 mA. Practically speaking, at 10 mA the electrical characteristics for the BC547Β transistor are not so great (there are also
some noise issues with biasing at 10 mA). For example V is 0,6 volts from 0,2 volts. From the datasheet for the BC547B we
CE(SAT)

can see that for a 2 mA collector current is behaves quite nicely. So we are going to select a Collector current of 2 mA.

We need a gain of 100. The voltage gain of Common Emitter aplifier is dictated from the following equation:

We will say that we need the gain Α, at least 100 and the collector current Ι C equal to 2 mA. To be certain for our design, we
are going to say that we need our gain to be larger that 100 (Α>100). So we can now calculate:

So, if we use a Collector resistor, R , of 1250 Ohm the voltage gain will equal to 100. Due to losses I know that the value of the
C

resistor must be bigger. So, we are going to select a 1500 Ohm resistor (available a Ε12 resistors series).
We need the operating point (Q-point) of the transistor to the middle of the operating point curve, in order the ac voltage to
swing without causing the transistor to enter the saturation or the cutting point regions. So we need a collector voltage of 4,5
volts (half of the supply voltage). So VCE=4.5 volts. Now we can calculate the resistor we must place to the Emitter (RE).
For the circuit, applies:
Did you spot the oversight/”error” to the calculations above?

We will select a value of 820 Ohms (Ε12 resistors series, I don’t have a 750 Ohm (Ε24 series) resistor).
Let’s now calculate R1, R2 resistors, composing the voltage divider for biasing the transistor Base. Generally, we need the
current through R2 ten (10) times (or an order of magnitude) bigger that the base current ( ΙB). We need this in order to
achieve a stable voltage divider, that leads to a stable operating point for the transistor. The current through R1 will be eleven
(11) time the base current (one part for the base current and the remaining ten parts through R2).
We know for the base current that:

For the base voltage we know that:

The 0,6 volts (V ) is the base emitter junction forward voltage.

BE

For R2 we know that:

R2=10,5 kOhm. We are going to choose R2=10 kOhm (Ε12 resistors series).
For R1 we know that:

We are going to choose R1=27 kOhm (Ε12 resistors series). We are selecting the lower closest value in order to
compensate for the increase of the RE resistor.
So far we have calculated:
R1=27 kOhm, R2=10 kOhm, RC=1500 Ohm, RE=820 Ohm. We must calculate
theC1 capacitor.
C1 capacitor is parallel to the collector resistor. This means that for the ac current the resistance (impedance) of the Collector
(let’s say Ζ ) will depend upon the ac signal frequency. But when the Collector resistance changes, the gain (A) changes also.
C

We need an upper limit of 22 kHz for the bandwidth (the human ear can’t hear frequencies above 22 kHz). This mean that the
output voltage must be 0,707 of the input voltage, for an input frequency of 22 kHz.

In order to reduce the gain by 3 db (or 0,707) we must reduce the collector impedance R by 0.707.
CZ

If the capacitor impedance is X , from two resistors in parallel connection, and the capacitor impedance:
C

From the impedance for a capacitor:

We are going ti select a 5 nF witch is the closest value available for me.

By calculating C1 we completed our design for the amplifier.

With the help of the program LTSpice we will simulate the circuit we designed. The voltage source Vmic has an output of 1
mVolt peak and a frequency of 1 kHz.

To the picture above we can see the output voltage, for an input voltage of 1 mVolt peak. This is 105 mVolts peak. This mean
that the gain is 105. Our requirement was a voltage gain of 100. So, this what we wanted.
Lat’s see the bandwidth now.
With the term bandwidth we mean the space between two frequencies (low and high) that the gain reduces by a factor of 0,707
of the output voltage.

To the above picture we can see the output for frequencies from 10 Hz to 100 kHz. We are looking for frequencies that the gain
reduces by 0,707 of the output. The maximum output is 40,46 db. We need the position of -3 db less.

From the pointers to the diagram we can see that the -3 db point for the low frequency is at 56 Hz. For the high frequency
the -3 db point is at 25 kHz. He had a requirement of 50 Hz to 22 kHz. 56 Hz to 25 kHz is really good.
We have now completed the design of our preamplifier.

To be continued…

Designing a transistor amplifier. Part B.

Posted on September 3, 2015by alexkaltsas

Power stage.
After competing the preamplifier it’s time to design the power section of our amplifier. I want this section to be implemented as
a Class B amplifier. We are going to select thePush-Pull configuration for the power transistors.
The following is intended as an educational aid and not a professional effort.
To the circuit above we can see the working principle of a Push-Pull amplifier. The amplifier is consisted of two complementary
transistors. An NPN and a PNP. Each transistor amplifies the half wave of the signal. This amplifier does not offer voltage gain,
but a current gain. Exactly the thing we need in order to drive a speaker.
To the above schematic we can see a real Push-Pull amplifier. The “problem” of such an amplifier is the relatively low input
impedance. Low as far as the driving of this stage by the common emitter amplifier we designed for the preamplifier stage. For
this reason we will combine the this Push-Pull stage with a Common Collector amplifier.

To the circuit above, we can see the “mixing” of the Push-Pull amplifier with a Common Collector.

We can see that the Common Collector topology is consisted of the transistors Q3, Q4. Those two transistor is combined as
a Darlington pair. We can approach them as a single transistor with a β (beta) equal to the product of the β of each transistor. If
for a example each transistor has a β of 100 the overall β will be equal to 100*100=10.000.
Resistor R4, R5 are used for the thermal equilibrium of the two power transistors Q1,Q2 of the Push-Pull stage. The internal
resistor of each transistor changes with temperature. Without the resistors R4,R5, changes in temperature would significantly
change the emitter current of the transistors.

The power transistors used is BD135 and BD136. The transistors for the Common Collector stage is 2N4403. Diodes D1,D2
is 1N4148. The resistor R4,R5 is 2 Ohms.
The selection of the parts is not optimal. It was based on the parts I had in hands at the time.

To the following circuit we can see the voltages and the currents of our amplifier section. We must calculate the
resistors R1,R2 and R3.
As stated before, our amplifier must drive a 16 Ohm speaker with 5 volts peak-to-peak (or 2,5 volts peak). This means the
current through the speaker will have a max value of:

This current will be the max current through the Q1 transistor (Q2 also, for the other half period). So:

We want our DC voltage to the output equals the half of the supply voltage (9 volts). So:

The voltage to the Emitter of Q1 is:

The current gain β (beta) of the power transistors is around 25. The base current, in order to the current we need to the output,
must be:

The DC voltage to the base of Q1 is:

The current through R1 and the two diodes must be at least 10 times bigger of the base current of the power transistors, in order
a stable DC base voltage. This current is the Emitter current of the Common Collector stage. So:

Now that we know the voltage across R1 and the current through it we can calculate it’s value:

The voltage to the Emitter of Q3, due to the forward voltage of the two diodes in series, will be about 1,4 volts less than the
voltage in the Base of the Q1 transistor. So:

The voltage to the base of Q4 transistor will be 1,4 volts less than the voltage of the emitter of the Q3 transistor. The forward
voltage of the two Base-Emitter junctions.

The overall gain of the Q3,Q4 transistors is 10.000. The base current of Q4 will be:

We need the current through R3 10 times bigger from the base current of Q4. So:

We now know the voltage across R3 (the voltage of the base of Q4) and the current through it, and we can calculate it’s value:

The current through R2 must be 11 times bigger from the base current of Q4. So:
We now know the voltage across R2 and the current through it, and we can calculate it’s value:

We were able to calculate R1,R2,R3.

 R1=56 Ohm. Available from the E12 resistor series.

 R2=92 kOhm. We are going to select 100k available from E12 series.
 R3=43,2 kOhm. We are going to use a potentiometer of 47 kOhms to adjust precisely the bias of the transistors and
compensate the change of the R2 value (29k to 100k).
The final design for the amplifier we designed to this two part article.