CHRISTABEL, CASSIM AND THUBELIHLE A.

 Amplifiers in the 10 to 100 MHz range are often used for

television receivers and radar receivers, and in both cases
wide bandwidths are required of the order of 5MHz.
To obtain this wide bandwidth the Q of the tuned Circuit must
be very low- of the order of 5 to 10.

 If a single tuned circuit is used, the turns ratio to the

secondary coupling coil can be made near unity so that
heavy damping is introduced across the tuned circuit by the
low input impedance of the next stage.

 If a double tuned band-pass circuit is used it is necessary to

connect a suitable resistance across the collector tuned
circuit and also is arranged that the secondary circuit is
correctly damped by the input of the next stage.
  When a wide bandwidth RF amplifier is to be constructed, the
bandwidth shrinkage effect which occurs when a number of
stages are synchronously tuned is a serious disadvantage.

 For a multistage amplifier to have a given overall bandwidth the

individual stage bandwidth must be considerably wider.
This means that the Q-factor of the tuned circuit of each stage must be
fairly low and because of this the gain of each stage is reduced.

 The practical result is that the increase in overall gain obtained

when an extra stage is added will be less than anticipated
 Better results can be obtained if
the stages are not all tuned to
the same resonant frequency.
This process is called stagger
tuning.
 Stagger-tuned stages are
 Some examples are
 Two stages are tuned to
frequencies spaced equally
either side of the wanted center
frequency f0 and provided
their bandwidth are suitable
chosen, the overall response is
reasonable flat over the
operating bandwidth.
 When three stages are
employed, one stage is tuned to
the desired operating
frequency with the other two
stages tuned one above and
one below that frequency.
commonly used whenever a
wideband, fixed frequency
amplifier is to be designed.
intermediate frequency (IF)
amplifiers in television
receivers and in UHF/SHF
radio-relay systems.
 The gain/frequency characteristics of the tuned RF
amplifiers so far mentioned have been specified by
the parallel-resonant circuits connected as the
collector or drain loads.
 Inductors cannot be fabricated within a silicon chip
and so an integrated tuned amplifier must have its
frequency determining components provided
externally.
 Often, instead of tuned circuits, the selectivity is
determined by means of a ceramic or a crystal filter.
 Tuned radio-frequency power amplifiers find their
main application in radio and television transmitting
where the transmitted power may be anything from a
few watts to hundreds of kilowatts.
 When dealing with high power levels the maximum
possible efficiency is essential and for this reason
tuned power amplifiers are operated under either
class C or B conditions.
 Class B operation of a valve or transistor means that
the device is biased to its cut-off point so that it
conducts current only during alternative half- cycles
of the input signal waveform.
 With class C operation the amplifying device is biased
beyond cut-off so that current flows in a series of less-
than-half sine wave pulses.
 CLASS C AMPLIFIERS
 The required class C bias is obtained from the leaky-base circuit formed by R1 and
C2. Inductor L2 is a radio frequency choke whose function is to act as a block to
the flow of signal-frequency currents and prevent the signal, voltage being by-
passed to earth via capacitor C2. The input circuit C1 –L1 of the amplifier is tuned
to the signal frequency and delivers the input voltage to the base terminal of
transistor T1.
 The positive peaks of the input signal drive the base positive and when it is more
positive that 0.6 V for a silicon transistor, a collector current flows. The collector
current flows for a period of time which is less than one half of the periodic time of
the signal waveform.
 The collector current waveform is the result of a fundamental frequency (equal to
the frequency of the input signal) plus a number of harmonics. The collector tuned
circuit C3 - L3 is tuned to the fundamental frequency.
 If it has a Q-factor greater than about 12 its selectivity will be sufficiently high to
ensure that only the fundamental component is able to develop a voltage of any
magnitude across tile collector tuned circuit. Hence, the alternating voltage
developed across the collector tuned circuit is of sinusoidal wave form.
 The voltage is coupled to the load via the mutual inductance between inductors L3
and L4. The inductor L3 is tapped to ensure that the transistor works into its
optimum load impedance.
CLASS C POWER
AMPLIFIERS
 The class C circuit of fig.5.9b shows the coupling from the
collector circuit to the load being made via a series capacitor C4.
The bias arrangement employed consists only of a radio frequency
choke L1 connected between the base of the transistor and earth.
 This arrangement is only used in conjunction with very large
input signal voltages; the input signal voltage is rectified by the
diode formed by the base emitter P-N junction of T1 and the dc
component thus produced acts as the bias voltage.
 Often the bias voltage can be obtained by the connection of R1 and
C2 in the emitter circuit.
 When the transistor conducts, a dc voltage is developed across R1
that makes the emitter of T1 positive with respect to earth and
thereby increases the reverse bias that is applied to the transistor.
 This circuit also illustrates the way in which most VHF and UHF
class C amplifiers normally work between either 50 Ω or 75 Ω
source and load impedance.
Waveforms in a class C amplifier
 Radio-frequency power amplifiers are generally operated in class C
because of the high efficiency obtained, in practice up to about 80%.
 The class C circuit can only be employed in conjunction with signals of
constant amplitude.
 If an amplitude-modulated signal is applied considerable distortion
arises because the voltage of the input amplitude modulated wave is not
sufficiently large to drive the transistor into conduction during the
troughs of the modulation cycle, i.e. whenever the modulated voltage is
less than the un-modulated carrier voltage.
 To avoid this distortion it is necessary to reduce the base bias voltage to
zero so that the transistor operates under class B conditions.
 Now the transistor will conduct one in each RF cycle throughout the cycle
of the modulation envelope.
 The circuit of a class B RF tuned amplifier is the same as the class C
amplifier but it suffers from the disadvantage of small efficiency, up to
about 65%.
 …
THUBELIHLE A.
 Sometimes a tuned power amplifier may start to
oscillate at some frequencies other than its normal
operating frequency and oscillations of this kind are
called parasitic oscillations.
 Parasitic oscillations are undesirable in power
amplifiers. Even though they do not occur at the
operating frequency, they dissipate power and result in
the reduction of wanted power output.
 The oscillations may also lead to the transistor being
driven into operation on the non-linear part of its
characteristics thereby resulting in a distorted output.
 Parasitic oscillations may occur at frequencies either
smaller or greater than the frequency of amplification.
 Oscillation at a lower frequency generally arise because radio-frequency
chokes and by pass capacitors in both the base and the collector circuits
form tuned circuits which happen to be resonant at the same frequency.
Then, an oscillator circuit may be formed.
 The input and output tuned circuits C1 L1 and C3 L4 are each tuned to be
resonant at the desired frequency of operation. L2 and L3 are RF chokes.
 C2 is a dc blocking capacitor and C4 decouples the collector supply. At
much lower frequencies the reactance of L1 and L4 will be negligibly
small, but now the reactance of capacitors C2 and C4 will not be
negligible.
 The effective circuit of the amplifier, remembering that as far as ac is
concerned the power supplies +Ecc and -Eb are at earth potential
Providing the resonant frequencies of the tuned circuits C2.L2 and C4.L3
are equal the circuit will oscillate at that common frequency because some
energy is fed from collector to base via the transistor's internal
capacitance.
 The obvious method of preventing parasitic oscil1atiors is to make sure
that the resonant frequencies of the parasitic tuned circuits are not equal
by a suitable choice of values for the RF chokes and coupling/decoupling
capacitors that are fitted.
 Parasitic oscillations may also occur at a frequency higher than the
normal operating frequency of the amplifier.
 At higher frequencies unwanted resonant circuits may be formed by stray
transistor capacitances and the inductances of connecting loads. Stray
capacitances exist in parallel with both the input and output paths while
the connecting leads to the base and collector terminals possess self-
inductance.
 At frequencies well above the operating frequency of the amplifier the
tuning capacitors C1 and C3 and the decoupling/coupling capacitors C2
and C4 will have a negligible reactance.
 Consequently, the effective circuit of the amplifier becomes that Lb and
Lc are the self-inductances of the base and collector lead respectively, and
Csb and Csc are stray capacitances of the base and collector circuits
respectively. This is essentially the same circuit respectively.
 This is essentially the same circuit and it will also oscillate if the products
Csb.Lb and Csc.Lc are equal.
 To prevent parasitic oscillations Lb and/or Lc can be altered in value by
shortening the length of the leads or perhaps Csb and/or Csc can be
changed in value by modifying the layout of the circuit.