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Power Amplifiers
A typical amplifier consists of several stages of amplification.
Most of these stages are small signal, low-power circuits. For
these small signal stages the output power is usually of the order
of 100mW. Amplifiers can be considered as linear devices and
equivalent circuits can accurately predict the amplifier behaviour.
The final stage of an amplifier is usually required to provide large
signal power to a load. Typical loads include loudspeakers,
antennas, positioning devices, motors and so on, and required
power is from few Watts to several tens of Watts or higher.
These amplifiers are commonly called Power Amplifiers. Because
of these relative high power level requirements, the efficiency of
the power amplifiers becomes important.
output power Pout, which is an ac power delivered to a load,
efficiency , defined as the ratio of the power delivered to a
load to a dc power supplied to bias the amplifier, namely as
=

Pload
Psup ply

There is one more parameter used to describe operation of power

amplifiers and is referred to as operating cycle or flow angle. The
magnitude of the flow angle depends on a location of the
quiescent point (Q) of power transistors used in power amplifiers,
(which defines the class of power amplifiers) and shows whether
the transistors are active all the time or only during part of the
signal period.

Operation of the transistor amplifier

The figure shows the characteristic of the transistor operation.

When the base electric current(Ib) is constant, the collector
electric current(Ic) doesn't change too much.
The maximum of the collector electric current(Ic) is when VCE is
0 V. The maximum voltage between the collector-the emitter(VCE)
is the power supply(Vcc). The line which linked these points is the
load line (red line).
Classification of amplifier

There are the class "A" amplification, the class "B" amplification,
the class "C" amplification in the transistor amplifier according to
the base current.

The operation of the class "A"

The simplest kind of class A amplifier is shown below.
We will use this circuit to derive the power efficiency of class A
amplifiers.

The class "A" amplification is the amplifier which amplifies the

signal of the same wave form as the input signal with usual
amplifier. The operating point of the class "A" amplification is in
the center of the load line. So, both on the side of the positive of
the input signal and the side of the negative voltage changes can
be amplified. The voltage between the collector-the emitter(VCE)
is about 1/2 of the power supply (Vcc).
The output signal is smaller than the input signal and can be seen
but the collector electric current is the mA and the base electric
current of the input is the A.
Output Power and Efficiency
The average power required from the power supply is
PS = VCC I C

The average load or output power is given by

2

I R
V I V I
PL = P P = P P = P L
2
2
2 2

Where Vp and Ip are the peak values of the ac output voltage and
current respectively. Using the minimum and maximum value of
the output signals we can express Vp and Ip as
VP =

Vce (max) Vce (min)

2

, IP =

I c (max) I c (min)
2

Using these two equations we get an expression for the load

power
pL =

(Vce (max) Vce (min) )( I c (max) I c (min) )

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This will give a maximum value load power PL(max) when

Vce(min)=0 and Ic(min)=0 and
when Vce(max)=Vcc and Ic(max)=2Ic.
p L (max) =

Vcc (2 I c ) Vcc I c
=
8
4

The conversion efficiency is defined as the ratio of the load

power to the dc source power is
=

PL
x100%
Ps

If we substitute in the maximum values we have

=

(Vcc I c ) / 4
x100% = 25%
Vcc I c

Hence the maximum efficiency of a Class A amplifier acting under

ideal conditions is 25%. In practice the actual efficiency will be
less than 25%. This is just used as a guideline.

Transformer coupling.
If a transformer is used to couple the load into the amplifier
then the Rc resistor can be eliminated. This reduces the power
lost in the resistor. The second point is that a transformer allows
for an impedance match to the load. For example if a loudspeaker
is used as the load, it only presents a load of 4 to 16 ohms.
Transformer allows the output to swing to twice supply due to the
flux stored in the transformer coil. This means that the V peak
becomes Vcc instead of Vcc/2 as in the case of a resistive load.
V p = Vcc , I p =

I c (max)

= Ic
2
2(Vcc I c ) / 4
max =
x100% = 50%
Vcc I c

Transfomer coupling is not a good solution, since the bandwidth is

limited by the transformer core, the maximum power is limited by
the saturation point of the transformer, the windings have finite
resistance and transformers add weight.

The operation of the class "B"

As for the class "B" amplification, the operating point near the
condition which the collector electric current(Ic) doesn't flow
through. In the class "B" amplification, the two transistors
combine and are used.The class "B" amplification is the way of
being used for the push-pull amplifier.
The characteristic of the direct current is opposite about the
NPN and the PNP transistor. The half of the input signal can be
amplified when combining these. It is the way of amplifying the
signal half.
Output Power and Efficiency
Let us assume that Vce(sat) is zero and Ic(min) is also zero.
Assuming a sinusoidal variation of the collector current
Ic1=Ipsint, then the average collector current will be

Ip
1
1
I c1 =
I c1dt =
I p sin tdt =

2 0
2 0

The average current drawn from the dc supply source for the two
transistors is
I dc = 2 I c1 = 2

Ip

Thus the average power from the DC source is

Ps = 2

I pVcc

The output power is

PL =

I pV p
2

So the efficiency is just

=

4 Vp

Vcc

This gives a h of 50% at Vp=2Vcc/p and 78.5% at Vp=Vcc. At this

value the maximum output power is
2

PL (max) =

Vcc
2R1

Crossover Distortion
If we look at the diagram for the input and output waveform, we
can see some distortion at the cross over where one transistor
stops conducting and the other one starts to conduct.
A small base-emitter voltage is needed to turn on a
transistor
QN actually only conducts when vin > 0.7 V
QP actually only conducts when vin < -0.7 V
When 0.7 > vin > -0.7, nothing conducts and the output is
zero.
i.e. the input-output relationship is not at all linear.

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vout
vout vin VBE

-VBE
+VB

v out v in + V BE

Actual Input-Output Curve

Effect of Cross-Over Distortion

vin

Class AB amplifiers
Since we have solved the power problems of Class A amplifiers by
increasing the efficiency and spreading the dissipated power over
two transistors, we now need to attack the cross over distortion
or dead band problem. The way to get around that is to allow the
transistors to be both conducting for part o the cycle. In that
way b will always be non zero and we will trade reduction in the
cross over distortion for more power dissipated.

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The operation of the class "C"

The class "C" amplification makes the bias point of the base
electric current the side of the negative than the B point. The
operating point of the class "C" amplification is not on the load
line. It is used for the high frequency multiplying circuit.
Class C amplifiers have their active devices in operation for less
than 50% of the time that the signal is applied. Their efficiency
is therefore higher than that of class-B amplifiers, ranging from
78.5% to nearly 100%.

The usual form of the class-C amplifier is that of the tuned

circuit shown in figure above, in which the collector is connected
to an LC resonant circuit (a tank circuit) which supplies power to
the load during the time that the transistor is off. The base of
the transistor is reverse biased by VBB which is decoupled from

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the AC circuit by a choke inductance. The transistor is turned on

when the input voltage rises above VBE-VBB (VBB is negative). The
frequency is limited to the resonant frequency of the tank
circuit.