ADAMSON UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
ECE DEPARTMENT
ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
FINAL PROJECT: AMPLIFIER

GROUP 3
MEMBERS

REMARKS

PABIANO, RENIEL L.
PACIS, JANALOU CIARA P.
PAJARILLO, CLARISSE U.
PALMA, VANESSA M.
RIGOS, KRISTIAN KARL F.
ROSAL, KEYVEN M.
SANTIAGO, ALECK GIO F.
SANTIAGO, JIN ANGELA
D.O.S: MAY 22, 2015
ENGR. BERNADETH B. ZARI
INSTRUCTOR

GRADE

I.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Inventor of Amplifier
An American physicist and electronics engineer Lee de Forest might be better
described as the "father of the amplifier." In the early years of the 20th century, he
was working in radio ("wireless telegraphy" as it was then often called) and had filed
a couple of dozen patents on improved antennas and receivers. On October 25, 1906,
he filed a patent for a "device for amplifying feeble electrical currents": a compact,
electron vacuum tube called the Audion, later known as the triode (because, in its
final version, it had three key electrical components inside). Although de Forest
originally imagined the triode as a telephone-circuit amplifier, it eventually became
an essential component of radio receivers. Despite inventing the Audion, de Forest
neither perfected it nor ever really understood how it worked (the two things may
well have been connected); it was left to others (notably Irving Langmuir of General
Electric and Edward Armstrong, inventor of FM radio) to turn the idea into a practical
device and explain the physics behind it.

How does his invention works?

The sealed glass vacuum tube (shaded gray and labeled D, from which all
the air has been pumped out) has three key components inside, which I've colored
red, blue, and green. On the left, there's a wire filament (red, F) heated by a

battery. This is the cathode or negative terminal. On the right, there's a platinum
plate (green, b), which is the positive terminal. In between them, there's a grid of
platinum wire (blue, a). When the filament is heated, negatively charged electrons
boil off it and are pulled toward the positively charged plate, making an electric
current flow. A negative voltage is also applied to the grid, effectively "braking"
the flow of electrons. Because the grid is so close to the filament, even tiny
changes to its voltage will make a huge difference to the current that flows from
the filament to the plate. If we consider the grid to be the amplifier's input, the
cathode-plate circuit is its output; a small signal applied to the grid can become a
much larger, amplified signal at the plate.
Vacuum tubes based on the triode made splendid amplifiers, but they were
large, unreliable, and power-hungry. When John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and
William Shockley developed their "solid-state" transistor in 1947, they solved all
three problems at a stroke, making possible small, portable, highly reliable
amplifiers for such things as hearing aids and transistor radios. When integrated
circuits were invented, in the late 1950s, they led to smaller, more complex
amplifier circuits packaged as single chips (as op-amps typically are now).

Noise
All amplifiers generate a certain amount of electrical noise. Generally, the more powerful the
amplifier, the more noise it will put out. If you turn on an amplifier (with the input device
connected but powered off) and listen to a speaker connected to the amp you can clearly hear a
hissing sound. This pretty much represents the noise floor of the amplifier. If the amp has an
input level control you will likely notice that the noise may vary as a function of the setting of

the control. For a powerful system, the noise might seem pretty obvious and annoying; however
when actual music is playing the noise will be totally masked.
All electrical circuits generate a certain amount of noise. Better designs minimize the amount of
noise, however no matter how good the design there will always be some. The noise comes from
several sources, some of it is generated by the movement of electrons in the system and cannot
be eliminated (unless you chill your equipment to absolute zero).
What are Amplifier Classes?
The Class of an amplifier refers to the design of the circuitry within the amp. For audio
amplifiers, the Class of amp refers to the output stage of the amp (in practice there may be
several classes of signal level amplifier within a single unit). There are many classes used for
audio amps. The following is brief description of some of the more common amplifier classes
you may have heard of.

Class A: Class A amplifiers have very low distortion (lowest distortion occurs when the
volume is low) however they are very inefficient and are rarely used for high power
designs. The distortion is low because the transistors in the amp are biased such that they
are half "on" when the amp is idling (this is the point at which the semiconductor devices
are most linear in behavior). As a result of being half on at idle, a lot of power is
dissipated in the devices even when the amp has no music playing! Class A amps are
often used for "signal" level circuits (where power requirements are small) because they
maintain low distortion. High end Class A audio amplifiers are sometimes used by the
most discriminating audiophiles. Distortion for class A amps increases as the signal
approaches clipping, as the signal is reaching the limits of voltage swing for the circuit.
Some class A amps have speakers connected via capacitive coupling.

Class B: Class B amplifiers are used in low cost designs or designs where sound quality
is not that important. Class B amplifiers are significantly more efficient than
class A amps, however they suffer from bad distortion when the signal level is low (the
distortion in this region of operation is called "crossover distortion"). Class B is used
most often where economy of design is needed. Before the advent of IC amplifiers, class

B amplifiers were common in clock radio circuits, pocket transistor radios, or other
applications where quality of sound is not that critical. For example, a siren driver is one
application of a Class B amp. Siren drivers are amplifiers that are basically driven into
clipping (to produce a square wave type signal). In such a drive situation there would be
little need to care about crossover distortion (the design can be less expensive due to
reduced parts count).

Class AB: Class AB is probably the most common amplifier class currently used in home
stereo and similar amplifiers. Class AB amps combine the good points of class A and B
amps. They have the improved efficiency of class B amps and distortion performance that
is a lot closer to that of a class A amp. With such amplifiers, distortion is worst when the
signal is low, and generally lowest when the signal is just reaching the point of
clipping. Class AB amps (like class B) use pairs of transistors, both of them being biased
slightly ON so that the crossover distortion (associated with Class B amps) is largely
eliminated.

Class C: Class C amps are never used for audio circuits. They are commonly used in RF
circuits. Class C amplifiers operate the output transistor in a state that results in
tremendous distortion (it would be totally unsuitable for audio reproduction). However,
the RF circuits where Class C amps are used employ filtering so that the final signal is
completely acceptable. Class C amps are quite efficient.

Class D: The concept of a Class D amp has been around for a long time (~ 50 years or
so), however only fairly recently have they become more commonly used in consumer
applications. Due to improvements in the speed, power capacity and efficiency of modern
semiconductor devices, applications using Class D amps have become affordable for the
common person. Class D amplifiers use a completely different method of amplification as
compared to Class A, B and AB. Whereas the aforementioned classes of amplifier
operate the semiconductor devices in the linear mode, Class D amplifiers operate the
output semiconductor devices as switches (ON or OFF). In a Class D amplifier, the input
signal is compared with a high frequency triangle wave, resulting in the generation of a
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) type signal. This signal (which some people incorrectly
identify as a digital signal) is then applied to a special filter that removes all the
unwanted high frequency by-products of the PWM stage. The output of the filter drives

the speaker. Please note that this is a VERY high level idea of how Class D amplifiers
work! Class D amps are (today) most often found in car audio subwoofer amplifiers. The
major advantage of Class D amplifiers is that they have the potential for very good
efficiency (due to the fact that the semiconductor devices are ON or OFF in the power
stage, resulting in low power dissipation in the device as compared to linear amplifier
classes). One notable disadvantage of Class D amplifiers: they are fairly complicated and
special care is required in their design (to make them reliable). Due to the high
frequencies that are present in the audio signal (as a result of the PWM stage), Class D
amps used for car stereo applications are often limited to subwoofer frequencies, however
designs are improving all the time. It will not be too long before a full band class D amp
becomes commonplace and less costly. Class D amps find use in many other applications
besides audio. Class D amplifiers will probably eventually revolutionize audio power
amplifiers: when they are perfected, their efficiency will allow outputs of 1000+ watts
without the need for a cooling fan! They will also be small and lightweight compared to
the class AB designs that are most common today.

Other classes: There are a number of other classes of amplifiers, such as G, H, S, etc.
Although some experts would certainly argue with me, most of these designs are actually
clever variations of the class AB design, however they result in higher efficiency for
designs that require very high output levels (500W and up for example). At this time I
will not go into the details of all of these other classes. Suffice to note that Class D
(among A, B, AB, D, S, G, H classes) is the class that represents a major delta in the way
it operates as compared to the other audio amplifier classes. Sometimes the consumer
marketplace promotes Class D amplifiers as being "digital". The marketplace tends to
toss around the word "digital" a lot, there is no really standardized definition (that I am
aware of) that deems an amp "digital". To find out what a vendor means when they use
the word digital with regard to an amp requires research into the design of the amp. Most
likely the vendor is just using a buzz word that the consumer may associate with a
superior technology.