‫جامعة وادي النيل – كلية الهندسة والتقنية‬

‫قسم الهندسة الكهربائية وااللكترونية‬

‫المستوي الخامس بكالريوس – الفصل الدراسي‬

‫التاسع‬
‫‪Engineering Electronics & Design‬‬
‫الكترونيات هندسية وتصميم‬
‫‪Lecture 4‬‬

‫‪Dr. Mugahid Omer Hajeltoum‬‬

 Active filters

• Active filters that are used for signal processing are

introduced
• Filters are circuits that are capable of passing signals with
certain selected frequencies while rejecting signals with
other frequencies. This property called selectivity.
• active filters use transistors or op-amps combined with
passive RC, RL, or RLC circuits
• The active devices provide voltage gain
• The passive circuits provide frequency selectivity

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 Types of active filters

• Active low pass filter

• Active high pass filter
• Active band pass filter
• Active band stop filter

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 Low Pass Filter Response

• A filter is a circuit that passes certain frequencies and

attenuates or reject all other frequencies.
• The pass band of a filter is the range of frequencies that
are allowed to pass through the filter with minimum
attenuation.
• The critical frequency fc also called the cutoff frequency
• fc defines the end of the passband and is normally specified
at the point where the response drops -3 dB (70.7%)
• following the passband is a region called the transition
region that leads into a region called the stopband

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 Low Pass Filter Response

• A filter is a circuit that passes certain frequencies and

attenuates or reject all other frequencies.
• The pass band of a filter is the range of frequencies that
are allowed to pass through the filter with minimum
attenuation.
• The critical frequency fc also called the cutoff frequency
• fc defines the end of the passband and is normally specified
at the point where the response drops -3 dB (70.7%)
• following the passband is a region called the transition
region that leads into a region called the stopband
• There is no precise point between the transition region and
the stopband
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 Low Pass Filter Response

• A low pass filter is one that passes frequencies from dc t fc

and significantly attenuates all other frequencies.
• The bandwidth of an ideal low-pass is equal to fc
BW = fc

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 Low Pass Filter Response

• The ideal response is sometimes referred to as “brick-wall”

because nothing gets through beyond the wall

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 Low Pass Filter Response

• Actual filter responses depend on the number of poles

• Poles is a term used with filters to describe the number of RC circuits contained in the filter.
• The basic RC filter shown bellow has a single pole, and it rolls off at the -20 dB/decade
beyond the critical frequency.
• The -20 dB/decade roll-off rate of the gain of basic RC filter means that at a frequency of
10fc, the output will be -20dB (10%) of the input.
• The critical frequency of a low pass RC filter occurs when Xc = R where

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 Low Pass Filter Response

• Actual filter responses depend on the number of poles

• Poles is a term used with filters to describe the number of RC circuits contained in the filter.
• The basic RC filter shown bellow has a single pole, and it rolls off at the -20 dB/decade
beyond the critical frequency.
• The -20 dB/decade roll-off rate of the gain of basic RC filter means that at a frequency of
10fc, the output will be -20dB (10%) of the input.
• The critical frequency of a low pass RC filter occurs when Xc = R where

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 Low Pass Filter Response

• Actual filter do not have a perfectly flat response to the

cutoff frequency but have dropped to -3 dB at this point as
described previously.
• In order to produce a filter that has a steeper transition
region, it is necessary to add additional circuitry to the basic
filter
• Responses that are steeper than -20dB/decade in the
transition region cannot be obtained by simply cascading
identical RC stages.
• By combining op-amp with frequency selective feedback
circuits, filters can be designed with roll-off rates of -40, -60
or more dB/decade.
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 Low Pass Filter Response

• Filters that include one or more op-amps in the design are

called active filters.
• The more poles the filter uses, the steeper its transition
region will be.
• The exact response depends on the type of filter and the
number of poles

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 High Pass Filter Response

• A high-pass filter is one that significantly attenuates or

rejects all frequencies above fc.
• The ideal response has an instantaneous drop at fc which
of course is not achievable.
• The passband of a high pass filters all frequencies above
the critical frequency fc

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High Pass Filter Response

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 High Pass Filter Response

The critical frequency of a low pass RC filter occurs when Xc = R

where

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 Band Pass Filter Response

• A band-pass filter passes all signals lying within a band

between a lower-frequency limit and upper frequency limit
and essentially rejects all other frequencies that are outside
this specified band.
• The bandwidth (BW) is defined as the difference between
the upper critical frequency(fc2) and the lower critical
frequency (fc1)

• The critical frequency also called 3dB frequencies

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 Band Pass Filter Response
• The frequency about which the passband is centered is
called the center frequency f0

• Generalized band-pass response curve shown in figure

bellow

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 Band Pass Filter Response
• The frequency about which the passband is centered is
called the center frequency f0

• Generalized band-pass response curve shown in figure

bellow

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 Quality Factor of Band Pass Filter
• The quality factor(Q) of a band pass filter is the ratio of the
center frequency to the bandwidth

• The value of Q is an indication of the selectivity of a band-

pass filter.
• The higher the value of Q the narrower the bandwidth and
the better the selectivity.
• Band pass filters classified as
— Narrow band (Q>10)
— Wide band (Q<10)

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 Quality Factor of Band Pass Filter
• The quality factor(Q) can be also expressed in terms of a
damping factor (DF) of the filter as

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 Quality Factor of Band Pass Filter
• A certain band-pass filter has center frequency of 15kHz
and a bandwidth of 1kHz. Determine Q and classify the
filter as narrow band or wide band.

• Because Q>10, this is narrow band filter

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 Band Stop Filter Response
• Band stop filter, also known as:
— Notch filter.
— Band reject filter.
— Band elimination filter.

• The operation is opposite to that of the band pass filter

because frequencies within a certain bandwidth are
rejected, and frequencies out side the band width are
passed.

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Band Stop Filter Response

General band stop filter response

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 Filter Response Characteristics

• Each type of filter response (low pass, high pass, band

pass, band stop) can be tailored by circuit component
values to have either
— Butterworth.
— Chebyshev.
— bessel.
Characteristics
• Each of these characteristics is identified by the shape of
the response curve.

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 Filter Response Characteristics
• Butterworth, Chebyshev, or Bessel characteristics can be
realized with most active filter circuit configurations by
proper selection of certain component values.

Comparative plots of
three types of filter
response characteristics

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 Butterworth Characteristic

• Butterworth characteristics provide

• passband has very flat amplitude
• roll-off rate of -20dB/decade/pole
• Phase response is not linear
— Phase shift, time delay of signals passing through filter varies
nonlinearly with frequency
• Filters with the Butterworth response are normally used
when all frequencies in the passband must have the same
gain
• The Butterworth response is often referred to as a
maximally flat response.

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 Chebyshev Characteristic

• Chebyshev response characteristic are useful when a rapid

roll-off is required because it provides a roll-off rate greater
than -20dB/decade/pole.
• This roll-off rate greater than the Butterworth.
• Filters can be implemented with fewer poles and less
complex circuitry for given roll-of rate.
• Passband is over shoot or ripple.
• Phase response less linear than the Butterworth.

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 Bessel Characteristic

• Bessel response exhibit a linear phase characteristic.

— Meaning that the phase shift increase linearly with frequency.
• The Bessel response are used for filtering pulse waveforms
without distorting the shape of the waveform.

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 The Damping Factor

• The damping factor of an active filter circuit determines

which response characteristics the filter exhibits.
• A generalized active filter is shown bellow, it includes an
amplifier, a negative feedback circuit, and a filter section.
• The amplifier and the feedback are connected in a
noninverting configuration.
• The damping factor is determined by the negative feedback
circuit and is defined by the following equation:

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 The Damping Factor

General diagram of an active filter

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 The Damping Factor

• Damping factor affects the filter response by negative

feedback action
• Any attempted increase or decrease in the output voltage is
offset by opposing effect of the negative feedback.
• This tends to make the response curve flat in the passband
of the filter if the value of the damping factor is precisely
set.
• Values of the damping factor have been derived for various
order of filters to achieve the maximally flat response of the
Butterworth characteristics

• .
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 The Damping Factor

• The value of the damping factor required to produce a

desired response characteristic depends on the order
(number of poles) of the filter.
• To achieve second order Butterworth response for example
the damping factor must be 1.414
• To implement this damping factor the feedback resistor
ratio must be

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 The Damping Factor

• This ratio gives the closed-loop gain of the non inverting

filter amplifier Ac(NI) a value of 1.586 derived as follows

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 Example

If resistor R2 in the feedback circuit of an active two-pole filter

of the type in figure shown bellow is 10kΩ what value must R1
be to obtain a maximally flat Butterworth response?

Solution:

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 Critical Frequency and Roll-off Rate

• The critical frequency is determined by the values of the

resistors and capacitors in the frequency selective RC circuit
• For a single pole (first-order) filter as sown in figure bellow
the critical frequency is

First order (one-pole) low pass filter

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 Critical Frequency and Roll-off Rate

• The number of poles determines the roll-off rate of the

filter.
• A Butterworth response produce -20dB/decade/pole
• First order (one-pole) filter has a roll off -20dB/decade
• Second order (two-pole) filter has a roll-off rate of -40
dB/decade.
• A third order (three-pole) filter has a roll-off -60dB/decade,
and so on.

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 Reference

Thomas L. Floyd, Electronic devices conventional current

version, 7th edition 2005.

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