Nanyang Technological University

School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

E2002 Analog Electronics – Homework Assignment 1

Instructions:

• This assignment contains one question, on pages 2-6.

• Except for your LTspice printouts, your workings must be strictly handwritten on A4
size papers. Typed, photocopied or scanned versions of the answers will not be accepted.
You may however submit a hardcopy of your solutions if handwritten electronically.

• Please write your name and tutorial group on every page of the answer sheets. Also
indicate clearly your matriculation number and number of pages on the first page.

• For all students: the completed Homework Assignment 1 must be submitted to the lab
officers as shown in the table below by 18 March 2022 (Friday), 5:00 p.m.

Laboratory Laboratory duty officer(s) Tutorial Groups Tutor(s)

EE25; A/P Daniel Poenar Puiu,
IC Design I Quek-Gan Siew Kim EE03, EE04, EE07, EE28 A/P Siek Liter,
(S1-B2b-13) <ESKQUEK@ntu.edu.sg>
Integrated EE10; A/P Zhou Xing,
System Kang Meng Fai EE06, EE08; A/P Yvonne Lam,
Research <EMFKang@ntu.edu.sg>
(S1-B2a-04)
IC Design David Robert Neubronner EE02, EE23, EE24; Dr. Ji-Jon Sit,
III EDAVID@ntu.edu.sg; EE01, EE26; A/P Zheng Yuanjin,
(S2.1-B3- Seow Yong Hing EE05, EE09, EE21, EE22 Prof Zhang Yue Ping.
02) <EYHSEOW@ntu.edu.sg>

• NO late submission is allowed. Zero mark will be given for no submission or late
submission. If you have a valid MC or officially approved LOA on the submission date,
the assignment should be submitted on the next working day after your MC or official
LOA. Otherwise, it will be treated as late submission and zero mark will be given.

Honesty Declaration:

This assignment has to be done individually by each student. Please be aware that NTU treats
Academic Dishonesty very seriously, and has harsh penalties for violating the university policy
on Academic Integrity: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/ai/Pages/academic-integrity-policy.aspx

In particular, note that copying the work of another student, or allowing another student to copy
your work, is considered as Collusion and Academic Fraud.
To ensure you have read and understood the seriousness of this matter, please write out by
hand the following honesty declaration at the top of your assignment, and sign it:

“I declare that I have done this assignment entirely on my own, without

referring to anyone else’s work. Signed: _________________”
Your assignment will not be graded if you do not include this honesty declaration at the
top of your handwritten assignment.
EE2002 AY21-22 Semester2 Assignment 1

Imagine the following situation: You recently notice that one of your grandparents is getting
hard of hearing in one ear. However they are reluctant to purchase a hearing aid, because they
don’t want to be seen wearing one. Then it strikes you, after completing the Opamp topic in
EE2002, that you could easily design a DIY microphone amplifier that would serve as a hearing
aid, using a standard hands-free headset with 3.5mm audio jack. Your battery-powered
amplifier could also be hidden in a pocket, and then your grandparent would look like they are
listening to music with a headset.

So you investigate. Using a function generator to drive the headset, you discover that the output
waveform needs to reach ~400mVpk (0.8Vpp) before your grandparent can hear it at 1kHz.
But you also discover that your average microphone puts out only ~20mVpk signal for soft
sounds. So you decide to amplify it by a gain of 20x to reach 400mVpk using a rail-to-rail
LT1880 opamp, running on a rechargeable 2xAA supply (Vs = ±1.25V) as shown below.

1) Observe that Vmic = Vi = 40mVpp as expected. Design the LT1880 opamp to act as a
microphone preamplifier with a gain of 20x such that the output is 400mVpk (0.8Vpp).

• Note that a typical condenser (electret) microphone is best modelled as a Norton equivalent
current source. A standard part like the AUM-5047L requires 0.2 mA of DC bias current
and hence drops 1V across the 5 k load; Vmic therefore has a DC value of 0.25V which
is filtered out using Cmic, hence Vi above will have no DC component (centered at 0V).
The audio signal from the mic is represented as 4 uA of peak AC current, and hence
produces 20mVpk (40mVpp) of AC voltage across the 5 k load. Right-click on I1 in
LTspice to see these parameters.

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EE2002 AY21-22 Semester2 Assignment 1

2) But if you try to connect the output of the opamp to both your earbuds, which each have
a load resistance of 32 (hence setting RL = 32 // 32 = 16 as highlighted below), you
should discover that the opamp output Vo becomes heavily distorted:

• This is because the LT1880 is rated to only drive a maximum load current of 20mA.
The load current for driving 400mVpk into 16  = 25 mA and exceeds this max limit.

A BJT amplifier can now come to the rescue! A common-collector amplifier has the potential
to drive more than 25mA from the supply, and can serve as a more ideal voltage buffer, if you
bias the Q-point with IC > 25mA. But what should it be exactly? This assignment will guide
you to figure that out. For ease of calculation, you may treat the most negative voltage as 0V
(Ground) rather than using Vs- = -1.25V. Hence VCC = 2.5V as shown in Figure 1.

VCC
= 2.5 V

Rin i1 iC
R1
Rout
vB Q1
2N3904
RI = 0 iB
vO
vI = 400mV +_ vE
R2
peak
i2 RL = 16 Ω
iE RE

LT1880 output
Earbud Load
resistance
Figure 1

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EE2002 AY21-22 Semester2 Assignment 1

Use the following parameters: NPN transistor Q1 (2N3904) has VBE = 0.75 V, VA = 50 V and 
= 250. VCC = 2.5V is provided by 2xAA batteries and rated at 2000mAh capacity. The coupling
and bypass capacitors are large enough to be treated as AC short-circuits. The LT1880 output
can be represented as a Thévenin-equivalent source with vI = 400mVpk, RI = 0.

Your task is to design the three resistor values of R1, R2 and RE, and verify that they will meet
the requirements described below.
Select your resistor values from standard 5% ¼W resistors using the following table:
https://www.eleccircuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Standard-resistor-values-5-tolerance.png.
Give all other answers correct to 3 significant figures.

Make sure to maintain the following standard notation for both current and voltage:
iE (ac + DC) = ie (ac) + IE (DC)
vE (ac + DC) = ve (ac) + VE (DC)

(a) Ensure that Q1 will remain in the forward-active region throughout its AC swing of
400mVpk. Do not let the dynamic current iE drop below zero, hence set IE > 25mA.

(b) Ensure that the small-signal gain AVT = vO/vB will be > 0.95 (i.e. <5% loss of maximum
signal amplitude from vB)

(c) Ensure that base current IB is <10% of I1. Hence verify that VB will drop by <10% from
the Thévenin open-circuit Veq set by set by the R1 and R2 resistor divider.

(d) Your 2xAA 2000mAh battery must last >20hrs, therefore the total current consumption
from I1 + IC must be < 100mA. Calculate the total power delivered = VCC (I1 + IC) and
hence report the percentage of that total power consumed in R1, R2, Q1 and RE. Note the
total must add up to 100%. Ensure that none of the resistors exceed their 250mW rating.

(e) Verify that your resulting input signal range for vb will be > 100mVpk. Explain whether
you expect to see any distortion with the 400mVpk input signal.

(f) Verify that your input resistance Rin will be large enough, such that the LT1880 will not
exceed its 20mA output current limit.

(g) Verify that your output resistance Rout will be <1 such that the resistor divider ratio
between Rout and RL will be > 16/(1+16) = 94%.

Finally, prove that your design will meet all these requirements by simulating it in LTspice
using the schematic provided below, and filling in the R1, R2 and RE parameter values.

Note: the BJT amplifier is powered by the same ±1.25V supplies as the LT1880, hence all DC
voltages reported in the LTspice simulation will be shifted down in value by -1.25V as
compared to your calculations using VCC = 2.5V.

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EE2002 AY21-22 Semester2 Assignment 1

Note that vMIC (ac + DC) = vmic (ac) + VMIC (DC)

Where vmic = 20 mVpk  sin(2ft) | f = 1kHz
And VMIC = Vs+ – 0.2mA(5k) = 0.25V

Attach a printout of the following LTspice results:

1. Your .OP (DC operating point) output (comment out .TRAN by adding ; as highlighted)
You should see the Operating Point dialog box pop up as shown below.

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EE2002 AY21-22 Semester2 Assignment 1

2. Your .TRAN 10m (10ms transient) output waveforms for vO, vI, vB and vE:
To run the transient sim, ensure that the .TRAN command is uncommented (no ;)

3. Your .MEAS results for the gains AV1, AVT, AV and AVMIC from the .LOG file generated:
To view the .LOG file, click View > Spice Error Log as shown below.

Your simulation results are acceptable if AV = AVT > 0.92 such that AVMIC > 18.4.

A small drop in gain below the calculated (theoretical) value is expected, due to the 400mVpk
input signal exceeding the small signal limit. When you achieve this, congratulations! You
have completed a paper design for a real hearing aid amplifier running on only 2xAA batteries.