Introduction to Signals, Circuits & Systems

A Practical Introduction to Electrical Engineering

Mehmet C. Ozturk; Chapters 1 - 3, 6 - 8 Mesut Baran; Chapter 4 Joel Trussell; Chapter 5 Amir Mortazavi; Chapter 9

u Edited by Mehmet C. Oztrk

North Carolina State University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Raleigh, NC

Table of Contents
Table of Contents 1 Resistive Circuits 1.1 Charge, Voltage and Electric Current . . 1.2 Conductors, Resistivity and Resistance . 1.3 Resistivity and Resistance . . . . . . . . 1.4 Resistors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Linear Resistors & Ohms Law . . . . . . 1.6 Resistors in Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6.1 Kirchos Voltage Law . . . . . . 1.6.2 Series Equivalent Resistance . . . 1.6.3 Voltage Division Rule . . . . . . . 1.7 Resistors in Parallel . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7.1 Kirchos Current Law . . . . . . 1.7.2 Parallel Equivalent Resistance . . 1.8 Circuits with Multiple Voltage Sources . 1.9 The Circuit Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.10 Diode : A Non-Linear Resistor . . . . . . 1.10.1 I-V Characteristic of a Diode . . 1.10.2 A Simple Diode Circuit . . . . . . 1.11 Other Resistive Elements . . . . . . . . . 1.11.1 Potentiometer - Variable Resistor 1.11.2 Light Emitting Diode (LED) . . . 1.11.3 Photocell-Light Sensitive Resistor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 7 7 10 11 12 13 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 24 27 28 28 31 34 34 35 36 43 43 43

2 Capacitors And RC Circuits 2.1 Capacitor Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Capacitance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.2

2.3

2.1.2 Charging a Capacitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Current-Voltage Relationship of a Capacitor Transient Response of an RC Circuit . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Capacitor Voltage During Charging . . . . . 2.2.2 Capacitor current during charging . . . . . . Discharging a Capacitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Capacitor voltage during discharging . . . . 2.3.2 Capacitor Current during Discharging . . .

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47 48 52 52 55 57 57 59 65 65 67 67 70 72 73 73 76 78 80 81 83 91 91 93 96 97 97 100 101 103 104 104 106 106 107 108 110

3 Periodic Signals in Time Domain 3.1 Periodic Signals: Period and Frequency . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Square Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Sinusoidal Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Phase Angle of a Sinusoidal Waveform . . . . . . 3.4 Time-Varying Signals in Circuits with Resistive Elements 3.4.1 Ohms Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Kirchos Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Average or DC Value of a Periodic Signal . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Circuits with Time-Varying Signals and Diodes . . . . . 3.7 Half Wave Rectier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Circuits with AC and DC Voltage Sources . . . . . . . . 3.9 Oscilloscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Electric Power 4.1 Physics of Electric Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 DC Voltage Sources and Resistive Loads . . . . . 4.3 AC Voltage Sources and Power . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Instantaneous Power . . . . . . . . . . . . Square Wave and Instantaneous Power . . Sinusoidal Wave and Instantaneous Power 4.3.2 Average Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Root-Mean-Square Voltage and Current . . . . . 4.4.1 RMS value of a Pure Sinusoid . . . . . . 4.4.2 RMS value of a Sinusoid with a DC Value 4.5 Power Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.1 Power Outlets in USA . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 Power Generation and Distribution . . . . 4.5.3 Your Electricity Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.4 Real Power with a Non-Resistive Load . .

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5 Periodic Signals in Frequency Domain 5.1 Adding Sinusoids and Importance of Phase 5.2 Magnitude Spectrum and Phase Spectrum 5.3 Power Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Signal Power . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Power Spectrum in Decibels . . . . 5.4 Periodic Signals in Frequency Domain . . . 5.5 Noise in the Frequency Domain . . . . . . 5.6 Audio Signals in the Frequency Domain . . 6 Signal Amplication 6.1 Voltage Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Transfer Characteristic of an Amplier . 6.3 Deviations from the Ideal Characteristic 6.3.1 Clipping Distortion . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Nonlinear Distortion . . . . . . . 6.3.3 Total Harmonic Distortion . . . . 6.4 Output Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Input Sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Power Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 Frequency Response . . . . . . . . . . . 6.8 Amplier Equivalent Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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119 120 121 124 124 125 129 131 135 141 141 142 144 144 148 150 153 154 155 157 158 167 167 170 171 173 173 174 178 178 178 181 183 185 186 186 188 189

7 Operational Ampliers 7.1 Basic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 What makes an op-amp so unique? . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Op-Amp as a Comparator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Basic Amplier Congurations . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.1 Non-Inverting Amplier . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.2 Inverting Amplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Why do we need such a large Ao ? . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.1 Equivalent circuit of an Op-Amp . . . . . . 7.5.2 Non-Inverting Amplier . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5.3 Inverting Amplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Virtual Short Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.1 Derivation of the Inverting Amplier Voltage 7.7 Applications of Operational Ampliers . . . . . . . 7.7.1 Audio Mixer - Summing Amplier . . . . . . 7.7.2 DC Level Shifter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.7.3 Dierentiator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Input Resistance of an Operational Amplier Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

8 Filters 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

197

Ampliers and Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Ideal Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Realistic Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Three dB cut-o Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 8.4.1 Finding the Output Power Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

8.5 8.6

Filtering in Time Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Active Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

9 Transmission and Reception of Radio Signals 9.1 9.2

211

Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Amplitude Modulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 9.2.1 9.2.2 9.2.3 9.2.4 9.2.5 9.2.6 Analog Multiplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Multiplication of Sinusoids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Amplitude Modulation (AM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 AM Signal in Frequency Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Modulation Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Transmission of Non-Sinusoidal Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

9.3

AM Demodulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 9.3.1 Inductor and LC Parallel Resonant Circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

9.4

A Simple AM Receiver (Crystal Detector) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

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Chapter 1 Resistive Circuits

In this chapter, we shall introduce the fundamental circuit laws including Ohms law, Kirchos Voltage Law (KVL) and Kirchos Current Law (KCL). These laws are applied to introductory circuits consisting of resistors and other resistive elements, which resist the electric current ow. Resistors are used extensively in electronic circuits whenever we must limit the current ow through an element to a certain maximum. They are also helpful in dividing up an applied voltage between dierent elements. Some of the resistive elements can do a lot more than just resisting the electric current. Examples include the light emitting diode (LED), which produces light; the photocell, which can measure the intensity of light and the thermistor, which can measure the temperature.

1.1

Charge, Voltage and Electric Current

Figure 1.1 shows a battery connected to an arbitrary load such as a light bulb, a radio or a hand-held computer. The battery, the load and the conducting wire form a complete

electrons

1.5 V

LOAD

Figure 1.1: A battery connected to an arbitrary load. 9

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Figure 1.2: A portable water fountain, which uses an electric pump to circulate the water. loop, which is essential for the electric current to ow. Electric current is established by the battery, which provides the energy to move the electrons around the loop. The battery has two terminals, positive and negative. Electrons leave the negative terminal, make a complete loop and reenter the battery through the positive terminal. Therefore, the positive terminal of the battery serves as a sink for the electrons. It is important to note that electrons can ow only if there exists a complete loop. The water pump used in a portable water fountain such as the one shown in Figure 1.2 serves the same function as the electric battery used in an electric circuit. The water pump collects the water molecules from the tank and raises them to the top of the fountain, where they are ejected through the holes. By moving the water molecules to a greater height, the pump provides them potential energy and the molecules use this energy to drop back into the tank. Similarly, there exists a potential dierence between the positive and the negative terminals of the battery. We refer to this potential dierence as voltage. The unit of voltage is Volt, V . In Figure 1.1, the battery provides the load a voltage of 1.5 V . We can also state that the battery results in a potential dierence of 1.5 V between the terminals of the load. From the above discussion, we understand that the term, voltage refers to an energy dierence between two dierent physical locations (e.g. terminals of a battery) in a system (e.g. battery). You may ask why we are not using joules as our unit of energy? Why introduce a new unit now? The reason is that voltage refers to energy or work done per unit charge. In the MKS system, the relationship between voltage and energy is given as 1 joule (1.1.1) 1 coulomb To understand the concept better, lets consider Figure 1.3.a which shows a charged sphere placed in an electric eld. An electric force, F , is exerted on the sphere by the electric eld. If the sphere is not held in place by an external force, it will move under the inuence of the electric force. Therefore, some work will be done by the electric electric eld in moving the sphere. Now suppose an external force is applied on the sphere in the opposite direction. If this force is at least equal to the electric force, the sphere will now move in the 1 volt =

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Electric Field

Fext

Figure 1.3: When a positively charged ball is placed in an electric eld, an electric force is applied to the ball. The force is inversely proportional to the charge stored in the ball. opposite direction. If the sphere moves by a distance d, then we the net work done by the external force can be expressed as W = Fext d The voltage dierence between the starting and the end points is simply this work divided by the charge stored on the ball. Each electron carries the same charge of 1.61019 Coulombs. Electric current is dened as the total charge, Q passing through any given point in the loop in one second, which can be expressed as Q I= (1.1.2) t The unit of current is Ampere, which is equivalent to coulomb/second. Since the charge is carried by electrons, the magnitude of the electric current is directly proportional to how fast the electrons circle around the loop. For example, suppose we have 11016 electrons entering the positive terminal of the battery every second. Then the current, I in the loop can be calculated by multiplying the charge carried by each electron by the number of electrons entering the battery: 1.6 1019 1 1016 = 1.6 103 A = 1.6mA which shows that we have to move a lot of electrons to create such a relatively small current.

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Figure 1.4: Benjamin Franklin

Figure 1.5: Electrons move randomly in the absence of an electric eld.

1.2

Conductors, Resistivity and Resistance

We have dened the electric current as the rate of charge ow due to the ow of electrons. Majority of the electrons necessary to establish the electric current are already available in the wire. These are free electrons, which are loosely attached to the atoms of the conducting wire. At room temperature, the free electrons are in random motion as shown in Figure 1.5 and the net charge ow in any direction is zero. When a battery is connected between the two ends of a conducting slab, an electric eld is established in the material as shown in Figure 1.6. The direction of the eld is always from the positive to the negative polarity of the voltage applied across the slab. The electric eld, E exerts a force, F on each electron, which can be expressed as F = qE (1.2.1)

where both F and E are vectors and q is the charge on an electron. Each electron carries a xed negative charge of 1.6 1019 Coulombs. Since this charge is negative, the direction

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Electric Field

Figure 1.6: An electric eld is established in a material when a voltage is applied between the two ends of a conducting slab. The electric eld forces the free electrons to move, which creates the charge motion needed for the electric current. of the force exerted on an electron is opposite to that of the electric eld. Electrons move along the direction of the applied forces and the resulting charge motion becomes the electric current. We note that the direction of current ow shown in Figures 1.6 and 1.1is clockwise or opposite to the ow of electrons. The answer to this discrepancy lies in the history of electricity. Scientic experiments on electricity had begun long before we knew about electrons. Benjamin Franklin was the rst to notice the direction of electric current ow and became the rst to use the terms positive and negative. According to Franklin, current ow took place from one object to another only if one of the objects had a surplus of charge. He used the term positive to refer to the object with the excess charge. By the time electrons were discovered and the true direction of electron ow was understood, the nomenclature had already been so well established that no eort was made to change it.

1.3

Resistivity and Resistance

Conductors such as gold, silver and copper allow electric current to ow much better than other materials. Most electrical wiring in our houses is made of copper because it conducts well and it is inexpensive relative to gold and silver. In computer chips, other metals such as aluminum, copper and tungsten are also used. Even the best conductors show some resistance to the ow of electric current. The physical quantity used to measure the degree of unwillingness to carry electric current is called resistance. The unit of resistance is ohms (). The resistance of an element is determined by the resistivity of the material used and the dimensions of the element. The

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A = area

Figure 1.7: The resistance of a rectangular prism is determined by the resistivity of the material used and the dimensions of the prism. resistivity, of a material is given in cm. The resistivity of a conductor is typically orders of magnitude lower than that of an insulator. Shown in Figure 1.7 is a rectangular prism with length, L and cross-sectional area, A. Its resistance is given by. R= L A (1.3.1)

which can be used to calculate the resistance of a cylindrical wire as well.

Example 1.1. Find the resistance of a 1 cm long copper wire with a diameter of 1 mm.
Solution: The cross-sectional area of the wire can be calculated as A = r2 = (0.05cm)2 0.00785cm2

The resistivity of copper is 1.7 cm. The resistance can be calculated from equation 1.3.1 as R = 1.7 106 cm 1cm 0.00785cm2 2.17 104 .

1.4

Resistors

In general, two-terminal devices that resist the electric current ow are referred to as resistive elements. There are many dierent types and applications of resistive elements. For example, the lament of an ordinary light bulb or the heating element of an electric oven are both resistive elements. In electronic circuits, we intentionally include devices called resistors, which allow us to obtain the desired voltage and current levels in dierent regions of an

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electric circuit. Figure 1.8 shows several resistors that can be found in electronic circuits. Such resistors come in dierent sizes because they are designed to handle dierent electric power levels.

Figure 1.8: Resistors used in electronic circuits

1.5

Linear Resistors & Ohms Law

Now it is time to consider our rst electric circuit shown in Figure 1.9, which consists of a resistor connected to a battery. The battery generates a xed voltage, say 1.5 V. The battery is a DC voltage source, where the acronym, DC stands for direct current. This implies that the current induced by this source is constant and it always ows in the same direction. In future chapters, we will learn about alternating current or AC voltage sources, which induce the type of current that changes its direction in a periodic fashion.
I

Vs

VR

Figure 1.9: A DC voltage source and a resistor in a closed loop

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Figure 1.10: A simple circuit drawn in three dierent ways In circuit analysis, we assume that the conductors between dierent circuit elements are ideal, which simply means that their resistance is zero. With this assumption, the voltage across the resistor in Figure 1.9 should be exactly equal to the battery voltage since there are no losses occurring on the wires connecting the voltage source to the resistor. The battery creates a potential (energy) dierence between its terminals. Recall that voltage is just energy (joules) per unit charge (coulombs). Because electrons do not lose any potential energy as they travel through ideal conductors, those electrons leaving the resistor and those entering the positive terminal of the battery end up having exactly the same potential energy. The direction of the current ow is determined by the polarity of the applied voltage, and it is clockwise. Note that the current ows from the negative to the positive terminal of the battery, which is always the case with sources of electrical energy. Electrons leave the negative terminal of the battery, travel around the closed loop until they reenter the battery from the positive terminal. Since the direction of current is opposite to electron ow, the current ow is clockwise. We note that the direction of the current ow through the resistor is from positive to the negative potential. This is always the case with passive circuit elements. Lets now consider Figure 1.10, which shows three seemingly dierent circuit diagrams. In reality, all three circuits are identical to the circuit shown in Figure 1.9. In creating a circuit diagram, we choose the arrangement that is most pleasing to the eye. In circuit analysis, we sometimes rearrange the elements to simplify the analysis. An ideal resistor obeys Ohms law, which states that the amount of current owing through a resistor is equal to the voltage across the resistor divided by its resistance. If the voltage is measured in volts (V) and the resistance in ohms (), the unit of current is Ampere (A).1 Ohms law is written as V (1.5.1) I= R where the voltage, current and resistance are given in volts, amperes and ohms. This is a straight line with a slope equal to 1/R. Eq. 1.5.1 is plotted in Figure 1.11. Such a plot is referred to as the current-voltage or the (I-V)2 characteristic of an ideal resistor. Because
The units; ohm, volt and ampere are names given after their originators Georg Simon Ohm (1789- 1854), Andre-Marie Ampere (1775-1836) and Alessandro Volta (1745-1827). 2 Pronounced eye-vee.
1

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of the linear relationship between voltage and current, a resistor is referred to as a linear circuit element.

slope = 1/R V

Figure 1.11: I-V characteristic of an ideal resistor obeying Ohms Law.

Example 1.2. Calculate the magnitude of the current in Figure 1.9 for a battery voltage of 9.0
V and a resistor of 47 k . Solution: The voltage across the resistor is equal to the battery voltage. We write: VR = Vs = 9.0V Using Ohms law, we can calculate the current as I= VR 9.0V = = 1.9 104 A = 0.19mA R 47, 000

Typical currents you will nd in electronic circuits are in this range.

When a closed loop contains more than one voltage source, the direction of the current depends on the magnitudes and polarities of the voltage sources. In Figure 1.14, the two voltage sources are forcing currents in opposing directions. By intuition, we can guess that the current ow has to be clockwise because the larger, 9 V battery on the left will force a stronger, clockwise current in the loop.

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1.6

Resistors in Series

When two resistors are connected as shown in Figure 1.12, we refer to them as resistors in series. We note that no other device is connected to the junction point of the two resistors. In a series connection, both resistors carry the same current and share the same branch. In fact, this is true for any two circuit elements in series. If this were not the case, we would have electron depletion or accumulation at dierent points in a circuit, which we know is not happening. Lets now consider Figure 1.13.a. All three resistors are in series. On the other hand, no two resistors are in series in Figure 1.13.b. For instance, while R1 and R2 are connected to each other at a single point, the fact that R3 is also connected to the same point means that the two resistors will have to carry dierent currents.

I VR1 Vs VR2 R2 R1

Figure 1.12: A DC voltage source and two series resistors in a closed loop.

R1

R1

R2 R3 (a)

R2

R3

(b)

Figure 1.13: (a) Three series resistors connected to a DC voltage source, (b) A circuit with three resistors. No two resistors in the circuit are in series.

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1.6.1

Kircho s Voltage Law

When a voltage is applied to two series resistors, the resistors share the applied voltage such that Vs = VR1 + VR2 (1.6.1) where VR1 and VR2 are the voltages across the resistors R1 and R2 respectively. This is analogous to the water fountain in Figure 1.2, where the water molecules rst fall into the upper tank spend some time in there and then fall into the lower tank. The sharing of the voltages is more formally expressed using Kirchos Voltage Law (KVL), which states that the algebraic sum of voltages around any closed loop is zero. This is written as Vk = V1 + V2 + . . . + Vn = 0 (1.6.2)
k

where Vk is the voltage across the k th element in the loop. KVL is a universal law, which applies to any closed loop with any number of components. To demonstrate how KVL is applied to a loop, lets consider our simple circuit shown in Figure 1.12 again. We have three circuit elements in the loop and hence, three voltages to deal with. According to KVL, the sum of these voltages should be equal to zero. We write a loop equation by going around the loop adding the voltage rises and subtracting the voltage drops until we reach our starting point. Applying KVL to a loop is quite straightforward if we remember the few rules and pointers given below. 1. First we assign current directions to dierent branches in the circuit. This can be done arbitrarily unless the current direction is obvious. For instance, in Figure 1.12, we know the current direction because the single voltage source forces a clockwise current in the loop. In more complex circuits, the current direction will not be obvious but as we mentioned above, you must guess the current directions and it is quite alright to guess them wrong. 2. While the current directions can be assigned arbitrarily, the polarities of the voltages assigned to the resistors must match the current directions. This means that no matter how the current ows, it must ow from positive to negative potential. 3. We add the voltage rises and subtract the voltage drops. 4. We can start anywhere in the loop. 5. We can go around the loop clockwise or counter clockwise, it just does not matter. Lets start tracing the loop from the negative terminal of the battery. As we pass through the battery, we encounter a voltage rise since we are moving from the negative to the positive

20

R I 9V 6V

Figure 1.14: Two voltage sources and a resistor in a closed loop terminal of the battery. On the other hand, as we pass through the two resistors, we encounter two voltage drops. According to KVL, the sum of these three voltages must add up to zero. By adding the voltage rises and subtracting the voltage drops, we obtain Vk = Vs VR1 VR2 = 0
k

(1.6.3)

which can be rearranged to obtain equation 1.6.1. You can try tracing the loop counterclockwise and obtain Vk = Vs + VR1 + VR2 = 0
k

which is equivalent to Eq. 1.6.3.

Example 1.3. A 1 k resistor is used in the circuit shown in Figure 1.14. Find the magnitude
of the current owing through the resistor. Solution: Applying KVL to the loop, we nd the voltage across the resistor as 3 V. Using Ohms law, the current can be found as I = V /R = 3V /1k = 3 mA.

1.6.2

Series Equivalent Resistance

In Figure 1.12, the same current is owing through all three components. Expressing the individual resistor voltages in terms of the loop current and substituting them in equation 1.6.3, we nd the following equation for the loop current. I= Vs R1 + R2

21

Therefore, the current owing through two series resistors is equal to the applied voltage divided by the total resistance. In a way, the series resistors are behaving as if a single resistor with a resistance Req = R1 + R2 is connected to the voltage source. This is called the equivalent resistance of two series resistors. We can easily show that this rule can be generalized for more than two resistors in series. The series equivalent resistance of n resistors connected in series is given by Req =
k

Rk = R1 + R2 + . . . + Rn

(1.6.4)

Example 1.4. Find the loop current owing in the circuit of Figure 1.12 if Vs = 9.0V ,R1 = 47k
and R2 = 22k. Solution: Since the resistors are connected in series, their equivalent resistance is given by Eq.1.6.4 as Req = R1 + R2 = 47k + 22k = 69k The loop current can be found using Ohms law as I= 9.0V V = = 0.13mA R 69k

1.6.3

Voltage Division Rule

Now lets nd the individual voltages that appear across R1 and R2 in the circuit of Figure 1.12. Since we already know the current owing through the resistors, we can easily nd the individual voltages using Eq.1.5.1 as VR1 = IR1 = Vs VR2 R1 R1 + R2 R2 = IR2 = Vs R1 + R2

(1.6.5)

According to these equations, the resistors share the applied voltage according to their resistance values. If the two resistance values are identical, resistors share the applied voltage equally. If the resistances are dierent, a larger voltage drops across the larger resistor. The ratio of an individual resistance to the series equivalent resistance determines the fraction

22

of the applied voltage that will appear across that resistor. Eq.1.6.5 is called the voltage division rule and it provides a short-cut for nding individual resistor voltages when two resistors are in series. You can easily show that voltage division is valid for more than two series resistors.

Example 1.5. Find the individual voltages across the two resistors of Example 1.4.
Solution: In the previous example, we found the current owing in the loop as I 0.13mA We note that this current is owing through both resistors. Thus, we can nd the individual voltages across the resistors using Ohms law as: VR1 = IR1 = 0.13mA 47k 6.1V VR2 = IR2 = 0.13mA 22k 2.9V The two voltages can be found more quickly by applying the voltage division rule given in Eq. 1.6.5. The battery voltage is divided among the two resistors according to: VR1 = Vs VR2 47k R1 = 9.0V 6.1V R1 + R2 47k + 22k R2 22k = Vs = 9.0V 2.9V R1 + R2 47k + 22k

Note that the two voltages add up to the battery voltage of 9.0 V.

1.7

Resistors in Parallel

The two resistors in Figure 1.15 are connected in parallel. In parallel connection, both terminals of the elements must be connected together. We note that the two resistors are also in parallel with the voltage source. The same voltage appears across elements connected in parallel. Hence, the three voltages in Figure 1.15 should be exactly the same: Vs = V1 = V2 . In Figure 1.15, a fraction of the current Is ows through the resistor, R1 and the remaining fraction ows through R2 . In other words, the source current Is is shared between the two resistors. This can be expressed as Is = IR1 + IR2 (1.7.1)

Figure 1.16 shows two dierent versions of the circuit in Figure 1.15. While the diagrams look dierent, they all correspond to the same circuit. It is an excellent practice to study

23

Is Vs V1

I1 R1 V2

I2 R2

Figure 1.15: Two parallel resistors connected to a voltage source. the circuit carefully before writing down equations to solve for the unknown parameters. Sometimes, a circuit may look a lot more complex than it actually is.

I2 I1 Vs I1 R1 R2 I2 Vs R1 R2
Figure 1.16: Two dierent versions of the circuit shown in Figure 1.15 .

1.7.1

Kircho s Current Law

A circuit node is a point where more than two branches come together. In Figure 1.17 six branches meet to form a node. Note that some of the currents are owing into the node while the others are leaving the node. According to Kircho s Current Law, the algebraic sum of currents at any circuit node is equal to zero, which can be expressed as Ik = I1 + I2 + . . . + In = 0
k

(1.7.2)

In applying KCL to a node, we add the currents entering the node and subtract those leaving the node. For the node in Figure 1.17 KCL gives the following equation: I1 I2 + I3 + I4 I5 I6 = 0 Now lets apply KCL to the circuit in Figure 1.15. Since the source current, Is is entering the top node, it is positive. On the other hand, the resistor currents IR1 and IR2 are are

24

I6

I5

I4 I1 I3 I2
Figure 1.17: A circuit node

negative since they are both leaving the node. This yields, Is IR1 IR2 = 0 which can be rearranged as given in Eq. 1.7.1. Finding the individual currents, IR1 and IR2 since they both have exactly the same voltage across them. In Figure 1.15, this is the battery voltage, Vs . Using Ohms law, we can nd the individual currents as IR1 = IR2 VR1 Vs = R1 R1 VR2 Vs = = R2 R2 (1.7.3)

(1.7.4)

From these equations, we can see that a larger current will ow through the branch with the smaller resistance. Remember that current always ows through the path of least resistance.

1.7.2

Parallel Equivalent Resistance

In the circuit shown in Figure 1.15, the current Is is shared by the two resistors. Substituting equations 1.7.4 in 1.7.3 we obtain Is = Vs Vs + = Vs R1 R2 1 1 + R1 R2 = Vs Req

25

where Req is the equivalent resistance. Therefore, two parallel resistors behave as a single resistor with an equivalent resistance given by 1 1 1 = + Req R1 R2 or Req = (1.7.5)

R1 R2 R1 + R2 We can easily show that Eq.1.7.5 can be extended to parallel connections with more than two resistors. The equivalent resistance of n resistors in parallel can be expressed as 1 = Req 1 1 1 1 = + + ... + Rk R1 R2 Rn (1.7.6)

Example 1.6. a) Find the equivalent resistance of three resistors in parallel whose resistances
are 10 , 100 and 1000 b) Find the current owing through each resistor if a voltage of 10 V is applied to the parallel combination. Solution: According to Eq. 1.7.6, the equivalent resistance is given by 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 = + + = + + = 0.1111 Req R1 R2 R3 10 100 1000 1 9.01 0.1111 This result is interesting, because it demonstrates that in a parallel connection, the equivalent resistance is dominated by the smallest resistor, in this case, the 10 resistor. Realizing that all three resistors have the same applied voltage of 10 V, we can nd the current owing through each resistor using Ohms law as Req = I1 = 10V = 1A, 10 I2 = 10V = 0.1A, 100 I3 = 10V = 0.01A 1000 which yields

Now, lets apply what we have learned about series and parallel connections to a slightly more complicated circuit in the following example.

26

Is Vs

R1 R3

R2

R4

R5
Figure 1.18: A resistive network connected to a voltage source Example 1.7. Shown in Figure 1.18 is a resistive network connected to a voltage source. Find the
equivalent resistance of the resistive network and then use your result to nd the current owing through the voltage source. Assume R1 = R2 = R5 = 20k, R3 = R4 = 10k and Vs = 10V . Solution: The resistors R3 and R4 are in series with an equivalent resistance of 20k. Their equivalent resistor is in parallel with R2 , which is also a 20k resistor. The equivalent resistance of the parallel combination is then 20 20 = 10k. This resistor is in series with R1 and R5 , hence the equivalent resistance seen by the voltage source is found as R1 + R2 (R3 + R4 ) + R5 = 20 + 10 + 20 = 50K and the current owing through the voltage source is I = Vs /Req = 10V /50k = 0.2mA.

1.8

Circuits with Multiple Voltage Sources

The circuits we have considered so far contained a single voltage source. In practice, we sometimes have to work with circuits that contain multiple sources. In analyzing such circuits we have to remember the following tips: 1. The direction of the current owing through a voltage source may be from the positive to the negative terminal if there exists a second, more powerful voltage source forcing the current in that direction. 2. The potential dierence across an ideal voltage source can never change no matter what you connect to the voltage source.

27

R2 Ix 10 V R1 I1 I2 I3 R3 6V

Figure 1.19: A circuit with two voltage sources and resistors. 3. The direction of the current owing through a resistor can be assigned arbitrarily as long as it is consistent with the polarity of the voltage. 4. If the numerical analysis of the circuit gives you a negative voltage or current value, this means that the actual direction of the current in that branch is opposite to the assigned direction. The following two examples emphasize the xed voltage rule for the voltage sources.

Example 1.8. In the circuit shown in Figure 1.19 assume all three resistors are 10k. Find the
current, Ix . Solution: The Voltage across the resistor R1 is 10 V since it is in parallel with the 10 V battery. Applying Ohms law, we can calculate the current through resistor R1 as : I1 = 10V = 1mA 10k

Similarly, Since R3 is in parallel with the 6 V battery, the current through resistor R3 is : I2 = 6V = 0.6mA 10k

Now, applying Kirchos Voltage law to the outer loop, which include the two batteries and the resistor, R2 we obtain: VR2 = 10V 6V = 4V Using Ohms law, current owing through R2 is I3 = 4V /10k = 0.4mA. Now applying Kirchos current law to the node connecting R1 , R2 and the 10 V battery we get : Ix = I1 + I3 = 1.4mA

28

I1 R1 Vs1 Vs2

I2 R2

I3

Figure 1.20: A resistive circuit with two voltage sources.

Example 1.9. In the circuit shown in Figure 1.20, Vs1 = 10V and Vs2 = 5V . Assume the two
resistors are both 10 k. Find the current, I1 . Solution: Applying Kirchos Voltage law to the loop, which includes the two voltage sources and the resistor R1 , we nd the voltage across R1 as: VR1 = Vs1 Vs2 = 5V Using Ohms law, the current through R1 is I2 = 5V /10k = 0.5mA. The resistor R2 is in parallel with Vs1 , hence the voltage across R2 is Vs1 . Using Ohms law, the current through R2 is I3 = 10V /10k = 1mA. Applying Kirchos current law to the node where the two resistors meet, we obtain: I1 = I2 + I3 = 1.5mA

Example 1.10. Repeat the previous example with Vs1 = 2V .

Solution: The rst loop equation gives the the voltage across R1 as: VR1 = Vs1 Vs2 = 2 5 = 3V

29

Then, the current owing through R1 is I2 = 3V /10k = 0.3mA. The negative sign implies that the current is owing in the opposite direction, but its magnitude is correct. The current owing through R2 is I3 = 2V /10k = 0.2mA. Kirchos current law yields I1 = I2 + I3 = 0.3 + 0.2 = 0.1mA which shows that the assigned direction for I1 in gure 1.20 is also incorrect. Again, the magnitude of I1 is indeed 0.1 mA, however, it is not owing in the direction shown on the circuit diagram.

1.9

The Circuit Ground

E = mgh

We calculate the potential energy of a mountain climber using the formula

where m is climbers mass, g is the gravitational acceleration and h is the height the climber is at. According to this formula, the potential energy at the mountain base is zero since h = 0. Therefore, the climbers potential energy is a relative quantity measured with respect to the the mountain base or the ground level. A similar zero energy reference can be dened in electrical circuits as well. The reference point is commonly referred to as the circuit ground. We can calculate voltages at dierent circuit nodes by adding the voltage rises and subtracting the voltage drops as we trace the circuit from the ground to a node of interest. The following examples illustrates the use of the ground concept in a simple circuit with two DC voltage sources. Figure 1.21 shows a simple resistive circuit with a ground terminal attached to the bottom branch. It is important to note that the ground terminal is just a reference and its presence does not change the circuit. In other words, the voltages across the circuit elements remain the same with or without the ground terminal. However, in circuits with a single DC voltage source, it is customary to connect the ground to the negative terminal of the voltage source.

Example 1.11. Find the voltage at point X in Figure 1.21.

Solution: Using the circuit analysis methods discussed earlier in the chapter we nd the voltage drops across the two resistors as V1 = 3 V and V2 = 6 V . To nd the voltage at point X, we can follow two dierent paths both of which are shown on the circuit with dashed lines. Following the rst path, we obtain: Vx = 12 V1 = 12 3 = 9 V

30

V1
10 k 50 k

3V

12 V

20 k

V2

Figure 1.21: A simple circuit with two voltage sources and ground.
It is important to note that the path we choose should not change the result. Following the second path in Figure 1.21 should therefore yield the same voltage: Vx = V2 + 3 = 6 + 3 = 9 V

1.10
1.10.1

Diode : A Non-Linear Resistor

I-V Characteristic of a Diode

The diode is a two terminal circuit element with the non-linear I-V characteristic shown in Figure 1.22. Since we no longer have a straight line for the I-V characteristic, we can not use Eq. 1.5.1 to relate the diode voltage to the diode current or refer to the resistance of a diode. Instead, the resistance must be calculated for a given voltage, which requires nding the slope of the characteristic 1 dI = |V (1.10.1) R dV o at that voltage. The modern diode shown in Figure 1.23 is an electronic device made from a semiconducting material, most commonly silicon. However, other materials such as germanium and gallium arsenide are also used to fabricate diodes. There are also dierent types of diodes based on dierent operation principles. While the I-V characteristic of any diode will be similar to the one shown in Figure 1.22, the exact terminal characteristics will be determined by the diode type and the material used. The circuit symbol of a diode is shown in Figure 1.24. Its terminals are called anode and cathode. By convention, the diode is said to have a positive voltage (V > 0) or forward biased when the anode potential is higher than the cathode potential. Conversely, if the

31

I (mA) 150

100

50

.5 .7

1.0 V

Figure 1.22: Current-Voltage characteristics of a diode with a turn-on voltage around 0.7 V, which is typical for silicon PN-Junction diodes. anode voltage is less than the cathode voltage (V < 0), the diode is said to be reverse biased . The positive direction of current ow is always from anode to cathode. Considering the I-V characteristic shown in Figure 1.22, we see that when the diode is reverse biased (V < 0) or forward biased (V > 0) with an applied voltage less than approximately 0.5 V, the diode current is practically zero. In this region, the diode resembles a very large resistor allowing hardly any current to pass through. Indeed, in this region, the slope of the characteristic is practically zero indicative of innite resistance or an open-circuit. On the other hand, when the applied voltage is raised above 0.5 V, we see that the diode current increases quickly. When the voltage is around 0.7 V, the I-V characteristic is almost perpendicular to the horizontal3 suggesting zero resistance or a short-circuit. In circuit analysis, the diode is often viewed as a switch. Hence, when the diode resistance is large, the diode is said to be o. Similarly, when the diode shows very little resistance to the current ow, the diode is said to be on. The minimum voltage required to turn on a diode is naturally called the turn-on voltage, V . In Figure 1.22 , this voltage is somewhere between 0.5 V and 0.7 V. It is customary to t a straight-line to the characteristic in the on region and extrapolate it to the horizontal axis to nd the turn-on voltage. However, for simplicity in hand calculations, 0.7 V is commonly used as the standard voltage for Si
3

Implies innite slope.

32

Figure 1.23: A typical PN Junction diode used in electronic circuits.

+ V
anode

cathode

I
Figure 1.24: Diode circuit symbol

PN Junction diodes. We note however one important dierence between a diode and a switch. While the voltage across a closed switch is always zero, there exists a net voltage drop across a diode when it is on. For hand calculations, we shall assume that this voltage is equal to the turn-on voltage, V . Table 1.1 illustrates the dierent operation regions we have discussed above. Figure 1.25 shows the I-V characteristic corresponding to the simplied model given in Table 1.1.

Reverse Bias V <0 I=0

Forward Bias V > V > 0 I=0

Forward Bias V V I>0

Table 1.1: Three regions of diode operation we shall use in simple hand calculations

33

Vg

Figure 1.25: a) Actual I-V characteristic of a diode, b) Simplication of the same characteristic for hand analysis.

1.10.2

A Simple Diode Circuit

Shown in Figure 1.26(a) is a resistor and a diode connected to a battery. We note that the diode is forward biased since the battery is forcing the current in normal direction of the current ow in a diode. Therefore, the diode is on, it shows very little resistance to current ow and holds a voltage equal to the turn-on voltage, V across its terminals. The remaining battery voltage should then drop across the resistor to satisfy KVL. The resistor actually plays a very important role in this circuit. Imagine connecting a 1.5 V battery directly across the terminals of a diode. This would force the diode to have 1.5 between its terminals instead of 0.7 V. This would in turn require a very large current ow with the possibility of damaging the diode permanently. The series resistor eliminates this possibility by setting the maximum current at VR Vs 0.7 I= = (1.10.2) R R In the circuit shown in Figure 1.26(b) the voltage source is trying to force a current in the counter-clockwise direction, which is opposite to the normal direction of current ow through the diode. Thus, the diode is reverse biased, it is o and the current in the loop is zero4 .

An realistic diode allows a small leakage current to ow in the reverse direction.

34

I>0

I=0

(a)

(b)

Figure 1.26: a) A simple circuit with a forward biased diode. A resistor is always needed in series with a diode to limit the current. b) circuit obtained by reversing the polarity of the DC Voltage source. The diode is reverse biased, there is no current ow in the circuit. Example 1.12. Find the diode current in the circuits of Figure 1.26a and 1.26b. Assume
Vs = 5 V, V = 0.7 V and R = 10k Solution: In Figure 1.26a, the diode is forward biased and there is current ow in the loop. According to equation 1.10.2, the voltage across the resistor is VR = Vs 0.7 = 4.3V Ohms law yields a current of 4.3 V VR = = 0.43 mA R 10 k What would happen if we reduced the series resistance to 1 ? Our calculation would yield 4.3 A, which would be too high for most diodes used in electronic circuits. In Figure 1.26b, the diode is reverse biased and it is o. This means that there is no current ow in the loop. It is interesting to note that from Ohms law, if the current is zero, there can not be a voltage drop across the series resistor. Thus, the entire supply voltage appears across the diode. Keep in mind however that this is reverse bias and voltages larger than V are perfectly safe since there is no current ow. I=

Example 1.13. In the circuit shown in Figure 1.27 the diode has a turn-on voltage of 1 V. Assume Vs = 6V , R1 = 10k and R2 = 5 k. First determine if the diode is on and then nd the current owing through the diode. Solution: First we assume that the diode is o and then nd the voltage applied across the diode. The same voltage must appear across the 5k resistor since it is in parallel with the diode. When the diode is o, it is equivalent to an open-circuit. Removing the diode from the circuit leaves the two resistors in series. Since both resistors now have the same current we can use the voltage division rule to

35

R1 I1 Vs I2 R2 I3

Figure 1.27: A resistive circuit with a diode.

nd the voltage across the 5k resistor. VR2 = Vs R2 5 = 6V =2V R1 + R2 10 + 5

Since this voltage is greater than the turn-on voltage of the diode, we conclude that the diode must be on. Therefore, the actual voltage across the diode has to be equal to the turn-on voltage of the diode or 1 V. Since the diode is in parallel with the 5k resistor, the resistor voltage is also 1 V and the current owing through the resistor can be found using Ohms law as IR2 = 1V /5k = 0.2mA. Applying Kirchos voltage law to the outer loop including the diode, the voltage source and the 10k resistor, we can write the following equation. VR1 = Vs V = 5 V Then, the current owing through the resistor is IR1 = 5V /10k = 0.5 mA. The current owing through the diode can be found by applying Kirchos current law. Idiode = IR1 IR2 = 0.3 mA

Example 1.14. For the circuit shown in Figure 1.28 rst nd if the diode is on and then nd the
voltage at the test point, X. Assume that the diode has a turn-on voltage of 0.7 V . Solution: We rst assume the diode is o and nd the voltage applied to the diode. Applying Kirchos voltage law to the outer loop yields, 12 VD 3 VR = 0

36

VD

3V

12 V

50 k

20 k

VR

Figure 1.28: A circuit with two voltage sources and a diode

When the diode is replaced by an open circuit, current cannot ow through the outer loop resulting in VR = 0. This yields a diode voltage of 9 V , which is greater than the turn-on voltage of the diode. We conclude that the diode is on and understand that the actual diode voltage must be equal to the turn-on voltage or 0.7 V . The voltage at the test node X can be found as: Vx = 12 0.7 = 11.3 V

1.11
1.11.1

Other Resistive Elements

Potentiometer - Variable Resistor

A potentiometer is an ordinary resistor whose resistance can be varied by turning a knob. A typical potentiometer is shown in Figure 1.29. This is the type used to control the sound volume in a stereo system. Figure 1.30a shows a simple resistive circuit in which we have an external resistor connected to a potentiometer. Figure 1.30b is the equivalent circuit, which shows that the external resistance is in parallel with only a portion of the potentiometer resistance, labelled RB . The total resistance of a potentiometer is always constant and equal to RA + RB . By turning the knob the value of RB is varied between 0 and the maximum resistance, RA + RB . There are other types of variable resistors, which are much smaller than the potentiometer shown in Figure 1.29. However, the operation principle demonstrated in Figure 1.30 remains the same.

37

Figure 1.29: A typical potentiometer used in electronics instruments. The device has three terminals for use as a voltage divider.

1.11.2

Light Emitting Diode (LED)

Light emitting diodes are very similar to regular diodes. The dierence is they produce light! Otherwise, their I-V characteristics are exactly the same as regular diodes. However, as we noted before, the diode turn-on voltage is determined by the properties of the semiconductor material. LEDs are made of materials other than silicon. Typical LED turn-on voltages are around 2.0 V and this changes from device to device determined by the semiconductor material used. In a circuit, just like a regular diode, an LED requires a series resistor to limit the amount of current ow. LEDs come in dierent colors. Red, green, yellow and orange LEDs are widely available. The amount of light produced by LEDs also varies greatly. The light intensity measured in millicandela (mcd) can vary from several hundred to several thousand. In some applications (e.g. trac lights and tail lights of cars) many LEDs can be used together to produce large intensities of light.

38

RA Vs Rext Vs RB Rext

Figure 1.30: A potentiometer connected to an external resistor. Note that only a portion of the total resistance, labelled RB is in parallel with the external resistance.

Figure 1.31: Light emitting diode (LED)

1.11.3

Photocell-Light Sensitive Resistor

A photocell is a resistor whose resistance is determined by the intensity of the ambient light. As such, in constant lighting conditions, photocells behave as regular resistors with perfectly linear I-V characteristics. Good photocells may have resistance values ranging from a few hundred ohms in light to several megaohms in dark. Photocells are used in cameras, elevator doors and many other applications where light sensing is necessary.

39

Figure 1.32: Two photocells of dierent sizes.

40

Problems
P 1.1 Calculate the resistance of a 1 km long electrical wire. Assume the wire has a diameter of 3 mm and the conductor used has a resistivity of 0.5 cm. P 1.2 Consider the circuit shown in Figure P1.2, a) Determine the resistors connected in series and/or in parallel, b) Assume all resistors are 10k. Find the equivalent resistance between the points x and y.
R2 x R1 R3 y

R4 R5 R2 x R1 R3 y

Figure P1.4
R6

R4 R5 R2 x R3 R1 y

Figure P1.2 P 1.3 Repeat problem P1.2 for the circuit shown in Figure P1.3
R4

Figure P1.5 4.7 k. a)Find the current owing in the loop, b)Find the voltage drop across each resistor. P 1.8 A 9 V battery has an internal resistance of 10 . The battery is connected to a 470 resistor. What is the actual voltage that shows up across the resistor? P 1.9 For the circuit shown in Figure P1.9, assume R1 = 1.5 k, R2 = 3.3 k, R3 = 4.7 k, R4 = 10 k. First nd the currents I1 through I4 and then nd the voltage across each resistor. P 1.10 For the circuit shown in Figure P1.10, assume R1 = 1.5 k, R2 = 3.3 k, R3 = 4.7 k, R4 = 10 k and R5 = 15 k. First nd the currents I1 through I5 and

R2 x R1 R3 y

Figure P1.3 P 1.4 Repeat problem P1.2 for the circuit shown in Figure P1.4 P 1.5 Repeat problem P1.2 for the circuit shown in Figure P1.5 P 1.6 Repeat problem P1.2 for the circuit shown in Figure P1.6 P 1.7 For the circuit shown in Figure P1.7, assume R1 = 1 k, R2 = 2.2 k, R3 =

41

R6

I1

R1

R4 R5 R2 x R1 R3 y

9V

R2

R3

I2 I4
R4

I3

Figure P1.9

Figure P1.6
R1

I1

R1

I 9V
R2

3V I2 I4

9V

R2

I3
R3

R3

Figure P1.10 Find the voltage at the node, X. Note that this is the voltage measured relative to the ground of the circuit. P 1.14 The I-V characteristic of a non-linear resistor is shown in Figure P1.14. Find the resistance of the element when the applied voltage is a) -2 V, b) 0 V and c) 2.5 V. P 1.15 The I-V characteristic of a diode can be expressed as I = I0 eV /VT 1 where I0 = 1 A and VT = 25 mV . Find the resistance of the diode when the diode voltage is a) -1 V, b) 0 V, c) 0.2 V and d) 0.7 V

Figure P1.7 then nd the voltage across each resistor. P 1.11 For the circuit shown in Figure P1.11, assume R1 = 1.5 k, R2 = 3.3 k, R3 = 4.7 k and R4 = 10 k. First nd the currents I1 through I3 and then nd the voltage across each resistor. P 1.12 For the circuit shown in Figure P1.12, assume R1 = 1.5 k, R2 = 3.3 k, R3 = 4.7 k, R4 = 10 k and R4 = 15 k. First nd the currents I1 through I3 and then nd the voltage across each resistor. P 1.13 For the circuit shown in Figure P1.13, assume R1 = 68 k, R2 = 120 k, R3 = 470 k, R4 = 150 k and R5 = 330 k.

42

R1

R4

3V I1 9V
R2

I4 3V I2
R3 R1

R4

R5

R3

Figure P1.11

9V 3V
R5

R2

6V

I5
R1 R4

Figure P1.13 where I0 = 1.2 mA and V0 = 1 V . Find the current owing in the loop and the voltage drop across each resistor. P 1.18 Repeat the previous problem with R1 = 1 k. P 1.19 The resistance of a certain thermistor varies with the ambient temperature in a non-linear fashion. The temperature dependence of the resistance can be expressed as 1 1 1 R = + ln T T0 B R 0 where T0 = 25o C, R0 = 1 k and B = 3o C. Suppose the ambient temperature is 32o C. Find the current ow through the thermistor when the applied voltage is 9 V. Use the piecewise linear diode model in solving the rest of the problems. P 1.20 The diode in Figure P1.20 has a turnon voltage of 0.7 V. Find the resistor such that the current owing through

I1 9V I3
R3 R2

6V I2 I4

Figure P1.12 P 1.16 The I-V characteristic of a particular nonlinear resistor is given by I = I0 (V /V0 )3 where I0 = 15 mA and V0 = 10 mV . Find and sketch the resistance of the element as a function of the applied voltage, V in the voltage range of 100 mV to +100 mV . P 1.17 In the circuit shown in Figure P1.17 the resistor R1 is an ordinary, 10 k resistor while R2 is a non-linear resistor. The I-V characteristic of R2 is given by I = I0 (V /V0 )3

43

I (mA)
3 2 1 -4 -3 -2 -1 -1 -2 -3 1 2 3

9V
V

Figure P1.20
3k

Figure P1.14
R1

9V
R2

9V

Figure P1.21 Figure P1.17 the diode is 1 mA. The diode in Figure P1.21 has a turnon voltage of 0.7 V. Assume R = 1k. First determine if the diode is on and then nd the diode current. Repeat problem P1.21 with R = 100. What is the smallest resistor, R that can be used in Figure P1.21 without turning o the diode? Assume the diode has a turn-on voltage of 0.7 V. The diode in Figure P1.24 has a turnon voltage of 0.7 V. First determine if the diode is on and then nd the diode current. Repeat problem P1.24 with a light emitting diode that has a turn-on voltage of 2 V. P 1.26 The diode in Figure P1.26 has a turnon voltage of 0.7 V. First determine if the diode is on and then nd the diode current. P 1.27 Determine the minimum voltage that the battery on the left in Figure P1.26 must produce in order the keep the diode on. Assume the diode has a turn-on voltage of 2 V.

P 1.21

P 1.22 P 1.23

P 1.24

P 1.25

44

8k

9V
10 k

1k

Figure P1.24

1k

9V 9V

1k

Figure P1.26

Chapter 2 Capacitors And RC Circuits

Until now, we have only considered circuits with resistive elements. In this chapter, we introduce a new two-terminal element, the capacitor, which is capable of storing energy in an electric eld. Capacitors have numerous applications in AC/DC conversion, lters, timing circuits and oscillators. The circuits constructed using resistors and capacitors are referred to as RC Circuits. In this chapter, we shall learn the fundamental concepts used to analyze circuits of this type. Specically, we will focus on the transient analysis of rst-order RC circuits with DC voltage sources. Examples of simple circuits with diodes will also be given.

2.1
2.1.1

Capacitor Fundamentals
Capacitance

The capacitor is a fairly simple device consisting of two metal plates separated by an insulator as shown in Figure P2.0. The symbols used for capacitors in circuit diagrams closely resemble this structure. Two alternative symbols are shown in Figure P2.0. When a capacitor is connected to a battery, electric charge accumulates on the capacitor plates. The charge stored on one of the plates has the same magnitude as the charge stored on the other plate, but its polarity is dierent. That is, if the charge on plate is positive, the other plate is negatively charged. This is essential to preserve the charge neutrality if we consider the capacitor as an isolated system. Charge neutrality is a fundamental phenomenon that is (and should be) satised by all real objects. Violation of this rule would result in electric forces, which are far too powerful for the real world to handle. For a fascinating discussion of the charge neutrality, and the resulting electric forces in the absence of it, the reader is referred to Lectures on Physics by the Nobel prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman. Since the two plates are separated from each other, an electric eld is established between 45

46

metal plates (area = A)

Insulator

Figure P2.0 A Capacitor is a passive circuit element consisting of two metal plates separated by a insulator.

Figure P2.0 Two alternative symbols used for capacitors in electric and electronic circuits

47

Figure P2.0 Michael Faraday, 1791-1867

the plates, which provides the means for energy storage. The amount of charge, Q stored on each capacitor plate is given by Q = CV (2.1.1)

where C is the capacitance and V is the potential dierence between the two plates. The unit of capacitance is Farads, which was named after Michael Faraday. The capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor is determined by the dielectric permittivity of the insulator, , the cross-sectional area, A and the distance, d. The capacitance is given by the following equation: C= A d (2.1.2)

In electronic circuits, we use capacitors with capacitance values ranging from a few picofarads (pF) to thousands of microfarads (F ). Insulators with high dielectric constants are used to make smaller capacitors. Examples of commonly used insulators include mylar, polystyrene, mica, glass and ceramic. Figure P2.0 shows examples of capacitors used in electronic circuits.

48

(a)

(b)

Figure P2.0 Examples of capacitors used in electronic circuits. a)ceramic disc capacitors are available at values ranging from a few picofarads to tens of nanofarads, b)electrolytic capacitors provide larger capacitance values up to several thousand microfarads(F )

49

Figure P2.0 A capacitor connected to a DC voltage source.

2.1.2

Charging a Capacitor

Charging a capacitor involves physically bringing new electrons to one of its plates by connecting the capacitor to a voltage source. As shown in Figure P2.0, electrons from the negative terminal of the battery travel to the bottom plate of the capacitor. Since each electron carries a xed charge of 1.6 1019 coulombs, electron accumulation on the plate results in a net negative charge. To preserve charge neutrality, the top plate must then acquire an equal amount of positive charge. The plate accomplishes this task by losing some of its electrons to the battery. For every lost electron, a charge of +1.6 1019 coulomb is added to the capacitor plate. This process results in two charged plates separated by an insulator. An electric eld is established between the plates, which creates a medium for storing electric energy. As the charging takes place, electrons continue to travel from the negative terminal of the battery to the bottom plate and from the top plate to the positive terminal of the battery. It is interesting to realize that, while we eectively have an open-circuit in Figure P2.0, there appears to be a continuous movement of charge around the loop. Since charge motion is the essence of current ow, there exists a net current ow in Figure P2.0 in spite of the open-circuit between the capacitor plates. The current continues to ow in the loop until the capacitor is fully charged and no more electrons can be added to the negatively charged plate. The maximum charge that can be stored in a capacitor plate for a given voltage V is given by equation 2.1.1. It is now interesting to ask the following question: How long does it take to charge a capacitor? As we have seen above, this requires that we physically move the electrons to and from the battery, which takes some nite amount of time. You can imagine that the faster we can move the electrons in the loop, the faster the capacitor will charge. In Figure

50

t=0

vR (t)

Vs

vc(t)

Figure P2.0 A capacitor charging through a resistor. The charging begins when the switch is closed at t = 0. P2.0, the battery is connected directly across the capacitor. Thus, the only resistance to current ow is the resistance of the connecting wire, which is very small. What if we inserted a resistor in series with the capacitor as in Figure P2.0. Wouldnt you expect the resistor to slow down the electrons and delay the charging process? We can also argue that a larger capacitor will require more time to fully charge simply because it can hold more electrons. Therefore, by intuition, we can conclude that if we increase the resistance or the capacitance in Figure P2.0 we will increase the charging time.

2.1.3

Current-Voltage Relationship of a Capacitor

Resistors obey Ohms law, which provides a simple relationship between the resistor voltage and current. Capacitors do not obey Ohms law and consequently, they have a very dierent I-V characteristic, which is the main subject of this section. We have previously dened the current ow as dq (2.1.3) dt where dq is the charge moved during the time interval, dt. We can also write equation 2.1.1 in the form, i(t) = dq = Cdv (2.1.4)

which states that a small change in the capacitor voltage is accompanied by a small change in the stored charge. Substituting 2.1.4 in 2.1.3 we obtain the I-V characteristic of a capacitor given below. ic (t) = C dvc (t) dt (2.1.5)

51

According to this equation, a larger capacitor current provides a larger change in the capacitor voltage in a given time interval, which is in agreement with our discussion in the previous section. Integrating both sides of the equation 2.1.5, we obtain another form of this equation. vc (t) = 1 C
to

ic (t)dt
0

(2.1.6)

It should be obvious from our previous discussions that because it takes time to move charge around the loop, we cannot charge a capacitor instantaneously. This is usually expressed by the following equation: Qc (0 ) = Qc (0+ ) (2.1.7)

where Qc (0 ) refers to the instant of time immediately before connecting the capacitor to a battery and Qc (0+ ) the time immediately after. Because charge and voltage are related to each other by equation 2.1.1, the voltage across a capacitor can not change instantaneously either. We express this by the equation below. vc (0 ) = vc (0+ ) (2.1.8)

Now suppose the capacitor in Figure P2.0 is fully uncharged prior to closing the switch at t = 0, hence, the capacitor voltage is zero. Equation 2.1.8 implies that at the instant we close the switch, the capacitor voltage must remain the same. Applying Kirchos voltage law to the loop yields Vs vR (0+ ) vc (0+ ) = 0 (2.1.9)

Substituting 0 V for the capacitor voltage gives vR (0+ ) = Vs , which implies that the entire battery voltage drops across the resistor at the instant we close the switch. Using Ohms law, the current owing through the resistor at t = 0+ can be found as vR (0+ ) Vs iR (0 ) = = (2.1.10) R R Since the resistor is in series with the capacitor, the current owing through the capacitor is also given by equation 2.1.10. As the capacitor charges, the voltage across the resistor drops and so does the current owing in the loop. The capacitor continues to charge until the capacitor voltage reaches the battery voltage. At that point, the voltage across the resistor becomes zero and the current stops owing. We need to understand that any current ow in the loop suggests the existence of charge ow to and from the capacitor plates. This in turn suggests that the capacitor is either charging or discharging.
+

52

R1

3V

R2

t=0

Figure P2.0 When the switch is closed, the capacitor is shorted, hence, it remains uncharged. Charging begins as soon as the switch is opens. Example 2.1. The capacitor in Figure P2.0 is completely uncharged prior to opening the switch
at t = 0. Find the current owing through the capacitor at the instant the switch is opened. Assume R1 = R2 = 1k and C = 1F Solution: Since the capacitor cannot charge instantaneously, vc (0+ ) = 0. Applying Kirchos voltage law to the loop, we nd that the entire battery voltage must drop across the resistor, R1 at t = 0+ . From Ohms law, we can nd the current owing through R1 as i1 (0+ ) = 3 V /1 k = 3 mA. Since R2 is in parallel with the capacitor, its voltage must also be equal to zero, hence, no current can ow through this resistor. Kirchos voltage law requires that the sum of the three currents owing through the two resistors and the capacitor must be zero. Since the current through R2 is zero, then the entire current owing through R1 must ow through the capacitor.

It is interesting to note that if vc (t)in Eq.2.1.5 is constant, the current through the capacitor is zero. In other words, if a DC voltage is applied to a capacitor, the capacitor current is zero. Indeed, a capacitor does not allow any DC current to ow.

Example 2.2. Find the current owing through the capacitor in Figure P2.0 at the instant the
switch opens at t = 0. Assume Vs = 5 V , R1 = R2 = 10 k, V = 0.7 V and C = 1 F . Solution: Since the capacitor is shorted by the switch, it must be completely uncharged prior to opening the switch at t = 0. Since the capacitor voltage can not change instantaneously, the capacitor voltage must remain at 0 V at t = 0+ , which makes the capacitor equivalent to a short-circuit. Now we need to nd if the diode is on. To do this, we assume that the diode is o and nd the voltage applied across the diode. Since both resistors are 10 k, they share the battery voltage equally, hence, the voltage applied across the diode is equal to half the battery voltage or 2.5 V .

53

t=0

C Vs

R1 R2

Figure P2.0 An RC circuit with a diode. The capacitor begins charging as soon as the switch openes at t = 0.

R1

Vs

t=0

Figure P2.0 An RC circuit with an LED. The LED limits the maximum voltage the capacitor can charge to.
We conclude that the diode is on, which means that the voltage across the diode has to be equal to the turn-on voltage of 0.7 V. Applying Kirchos voltage law to the loop yields the voltage across R1 as vR1 = Vs VD = 5 0.7 = 4.3 V Using Ohms law, the current through the resistor is IR1 = 0.43mA. Since R1 is in series with the capacitor the same current must be owing through the capacitor.

Example 2.3. In Figure P2.0, the switch is kept closed prior to t = 0, keeping the LED o
and the capacitor uncharged. Find the capacitor current at the instant the switch opens. Assume

54

Vs = 5 V , R1 = 5 k, V = 1.8 V and C = 4.7 F . Solution: When the switch opens at t = 0, the capacitor voltage can not change instantaneously, therefore, the diode is eectively shorted and it is o. Then, applying Kirchos voltage law to the loop reveals that the entire battery voltage must drop across the resistor resulting in a current of 5 V /5 k = 1 mA. Since the diode is o, it is equivalent to an open-circuit and the diode current is zero. Thus, to satisfy Kirchos current the capacitor current must be exactly equal to the current owing through the resistor.

Example 2.4. In Figure P2.0, nd the maximum voltage the capacitor will charge to. Also nd
the current that will ow through the LED when the capacitor reaches this maximum voltage. Solution: The LED turns on when the capacitor voltage reaches the turn-on voltage of the LED, therefore, the capacitor voltage cannot exceed V = 1.8 V . The fact that the capacitor voltage has to remain forever at 1.8 V guarantees that there can not be any charge transfer to and from the capacitor once the LED turns on. Since we cannot have a current without any charge movement, the capacitor current has to be zero, which also means that the entire current owing through the resistor must ow through the diode. In other words, the capacitor behaves like an open-circuit once the LED turns on. The voltage across the resistor is equal to the supply voltage minus the voltage across the LED. The LED current can be found as ILED = Vs V 5 V 1.8 V = = 0.64 mA R1 5 k

2.2
2.2.1

Transient Response of an RC Circuit

Capacitor Voltage During Charging

In this section, we will derive a classic equation that describes the time dependence of the capacitor voltage as it charges to the voltage applied to the RC circuit. The derivation will be made for the RC circuit shown in Figure P2.0. We will assume that the capacitor is completely uncharged prior to closing the switch at t = 0. Closing the switch completes the loop and we can apply Kirchos voltage law to the circuit. Vs vR (t) vc (t) = 0 (2.2.1)

55

The above equation states that the voltage supplied by the battery is always shared by the two elements. Using 2.2.1 and Ohms law, the current going through the resistor can be expressed as Vs vc (t) vR (t) = (2.2.2) R R Since the same current must be following through both elements, the resistor current must also satisfy the current-voltage relationship of the capacitor given in equation 2.1.5. This yields another equation for the resistor current given below. iR (t) = dvc (t) (2.2.3) dt Equating above to equation 2.2.2 and rearranging the terms, we obtain the following dierential equation. iR (t) = ic (t) = C dvc (t) vc (t) Vs + =0 (2.2.4) dt RC RC You will learn how to solve similar equations in future courses. For now, we will give you the solution, which you can readily verify by substituting it back into the dierential equation. The solution is the classic capacitor charging equation given below. vc (t) = Vs (1 et/RC ) (2.2.5)

The RC product in the exponential term is called the time constant, , of the circuit and it is given in units of time. We have plotted Eq. 2.2.5 in Figure P2.0 using four dierent RC time constants obtained using the resistor and capacitor values given in the gure caption. We can see that in all four cases the capacitor voltage starts at 0 V and then increases exponentially toward the voltage, Vs applied to the RC circuit. Dierent time constants result in dierent capacitor charging rates. In general, larger the RC time constant, longer it takes to charge the capacitor. This should make intuitive sense: a larger resistance slows down the charge transfer, a larger capacitance can store more charge. You can readily predict this behavior from the charging equation. At t = 0, the exponential term in equation 2.2.5 is equal to unity, hence, the capacitor voltage is zero. This satises the condition that the capacitor voltage can not change instantaneously. With increasing time, the exponential term, et/RC becomes small and the capacitor voltage approaches the supply voltage, Vs .

Example 2.5. In the RC circuit of Figure P2.0 calculate how long it would take to charge the capacitor to half the battery voltage after closing the switch at t = 0. Assume Vs = 10V , C = 2.2F ,

56

10

Voltage (V)

0 0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Time (s)

Figure P2.0 Capacitor voltage during charging plotted for four dierent RC time constants obtained using R = 100 k and C = 1, 3, 6 and 10 F . The capacitor begins to charge at t = 0. The voltage source used in the circuit is 10 V

57

R = 1 k. Solution: The capacitor voltage will increase according to Eq. 2.2.5. We can nd the RC time constant as = RC = 1 k 2.2 F = 103 2.2 106 F = 2.2ms Substituting Vs = 10 V and vc (t) = 5 V in 2.2.5 and solving for time, t, we nd that it will take 1.5 ms to charge the capacitor to 5 V .

Example 2.6. How long does it take the capacitor in Figure P2.0 to reach the LED turn-on
voltage after opening the switch at t = 0? Solution: When the capacitor begins to charge at t = 0 the LED is o and it has to remain o until the capacitor voltage is equal to the turn-on voltage of the diode. During this time, the diode is equivalent to an open-circuit, hence, the capacitor begins to charge with a time constant of = RC = 5000 4.7 106 F = 0.0235 s The capacitor voltage during charging is given by equation 2.2.5. We note that this equation was obtained for the simple RC circuit in Figure P2.0. The only reason we can use the same equation in this problem is that the diode is o, hence, it is equivalent to an open circuit. Substituting the known parameters in 2.2.5 we obtain: vc (t) = Vs 1 et/RC = 5 1 et/0.0235 V When vc = 1.7 V , the diode turns on. Since the LED voltage has to remain constant at the turn-on voltage, the capacitor charging stops when the LED is on. Thus the charging time is the time required to charge the capacitor to only 1.7 V instead of the battery voltage of 5 V. Substituting 1.7 V for the capacitor voltage in the above equation and solving for time, t = 0.0235 ln 1 1.7 V 5V 9.8 ms

2.2.2

Capacitor current during charging

Since we know how the capacitor voltage is changing with time, it is easy to nd the time dependence of the capacitor current. Substituting the capacitor voltage, vc (t) from equation 2.2.5 into the capacitor I-V characteristic given in 2.1.5 we obtain the following equation,

58

11 10 9 8

x 10

Current (A)

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Time (s)

Figure P2.0 Capacitor current during charging plotted for four dierent RC time constants obtained using R = 100 k and C = 1, 3, 6 and 10 F . The capacitor begins to charge at t = 0. The voltage source used in the circuit is 10 V

ic (t) = C

d Vs Vs (1 et/RC ) = et/RC dt R

(2.2.6)

which is plotted in Figure P2.0. We can see that the maximum current ows through the capacitor at t = 0, the instant the switch is closed and the capacitor begins to charge. This current can be found by substituting t = 0 in equation 2.2.6. This yields, iR (0) = Vs R

which we have already found in the previous section by using vc (0 ) = vc (0+ ) = 0 leaving the entire battery voltage drop across the resistor. With time, the capacitor current decreases exponentially approaching zero at t = . Equation 2.2.6 indicates that when the capacitor becomes fully charged, that is, when vc (t) = Vs , the capacitor acts like an open circuit and current can no longer ow in the loop.

59

ic (t)

t=0

vc (t)

vR (t)

Figure P2.0 The capacitor is charged to a voltage Vo before closing the switch at t = 0. When the switch is closed, the capacitor starts discharging through the resistor.

2.3

Discharging a Capacitor

Now lets consider how a charged capacitor discharges when it is connected to a resistor. Suppose the capacitor in Figure P2.0 is fully charged to a voltage Vo before it is connected to the circuit. When the switch is closed at t = 0, a current starts owing in the loop discharging the capacitor. During this process, electrons ow in the counter-clockwise direction until no excess electrons are left on the negatively charged capacitor plate. At that point, the potential dierence and the electric eld across the capacitor are both zero. It is interesting to note that the capacitor in Figure P2.0 closely resembles a voltage source providing energy to the circuit. The dierence is that the capacitor is able to provide this energy only for a limited time until it is completely discharged. The energy stored in the capacitor is converted to heat as the current travels through the resistor. We will return to this subject when we discuss electric power in Chapter 4.

2.3.1

Capacitor voltage during discharging

We will now derive equations for the capacitor voltage and current during the discharge cycle. First, we note that our simple circuit in Figure P2.0 has a unique property. Since the capacitor and the resistor form a closed loop, the same current must be owing through both elements. This yields the equation, C vR (t) dvc (t) = dt R (2.3.1)

where we used Ohms law and equation 2.1.5for the resistor and capacitor current respectively. Since both terminals of the elements are connected to each other, they must also have the same voltage, that is, vc (t) = vR (t). Substituting above and rearranging the terms we nd the dierential equation given below.

60

11 10 9 8

Voltage (V)

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

Time (s)

Figure P2.0 Capacitor voltage during discharging plotted for four dierent RC time constants obtained using R = 100 k and C = 1, 3, 6 and 10 F . The capacitor begins to discharge at t = 0 from an initial voltage of 10 V .

61

dvc (t) vR (t) =0 dt RC which we need to solve for the capacitor voltage. The solution yields, vc (t) = Vo et/RC

(2.3.2)

(2.3.3)

where Vo is the capacitor voltage at the instant the switch is closed. You can verify that Eq. 2.3.3 is indeed a solution by substituting it into the dierential equation. Equation 2.3.3 is plotted in Figure P2.0. Similar to the charging process, the rate of change of the capacitor voltage is highest at the instant the switch is closed. As time passes, the voltage continues to decrease reaching o V at t = .

Example 2.7. A 1 F capacitor is charged to 5 V before it is connected to a 22 k resistor. How

long will it take for the capacitor voltage to drop to 2.5 V? Solution: The capacitor will discharge through the resistor according to equation 2.3.3 with a time constant of RC = 22000 106 F = 0.022 s Substituting Vo = 5 V and vc (t) = 2.5 V in equation 2.3.3 we obtain, 2.5 = 5et/0.022 which yields, t = 0.022 ln 2.5 5 15.2 ms

2.3.2

Capacitor Current during Discharging

The capacitor current during discharge can be readily found by substituting equation 2.3.3 in the capacitor I-V characteristic given in equation 2.1.5. This yields, d Vo (2.3.4) Vo et/RC = et/RC dt R Therefore, as the capacitor voltage decreases exponentially, the capacitor current also decreases at the same rate with a time constant equal to RC. The largest current ows through the capacitor at the instant the capacitor begins to discharge. This current can be ic (t) = C

62

found by substituting t = 0 in the above equation. Alternatively, since the capacitor voltage is always equal to the resistor voltage, at the instant the switch in Figure P2.0 is closed, the resistor voltage is equal to VR .

63

Problems
P 2.1 The heart of a typical MOS transistor used in a CMOS integrated circuit is a capacitor, which consists of a thin layer of silicon dioxide sandwiched between metal and silicon plates. Suppose the surface area of a capacitor plate is 50 nm 50 nm and the thickness of the oxide is 2 nm. Find the capacitance of the MOS capacitor. P 2.2 A 220 F capacitor is charged to 9 V. Calculate the net charge stored on one of its plates. P 2.3 In Figure P2.3 the switch S1 is closed and the switch S2 is open for t < 0. Suppose S1 is opened and S2 is closed at t = 0. Find the voltage on each capacitor in terms of the battery voltage, Vs .
S1 S2

S1 C1

Vs
C2 S2

Figure P2.5 P 2.6 In Figure P2.5 Vs = 9 V , C1 = 330 F and C2 = 47 F . Assume the switches S1 and S2 are both closed for t < 0 and S2 is opened at t = 0. Find the electric charge stored in each capacitor for t > 0. P 2.7 Find the time constant of the RC circuit shown in Figure P2.7.
5.6 k

Vs

9V
C1 C2

1 F

Figure P2.3 P 2.4 In Figure P2.3 Vs = 9 V , C1 = 100 F and C2 = 220 F . The switch S1 is closed and the switch S2 is open for t < 0. Suppose S1 is opened and S2 is closed at t = 0. Find the electric charge stored in each capacitor. P 2.5 In Figure P2.5 assume the switches S1 and S2 are both closed for t < 0 and S2 is opened at t = 0. Find the voltage on each capacitor in terms of the battery voltage, Vs for t > 0.

Figure P2.7 P 2.8 In the RC circuit shown in Figure P2.7, the capacitor is uncharged prior to closing the switch at t = 0. Find how much time the capacitor needs to charge to one third of the battery voltage. Find the current owing in the loop at that instant. P 2.9 The time constant of the basic RC circuit in Figure P2.7 can be reduced by using a smaller capacitor or resistor. How much would the capacitor need to charge

64

to one third of the battery voltage if the time constant is reduced to one half of its original value in P2.7. P 2.10 The switch in Figure P2.10 is kept closed prior to t = 0. a) Find the capacitor voltage at the instant the switch is opened at t = 0+ , b) Find the resistor voltage and loop current at the same instant.
5.6 k

closed for a very long time.

10 k 3.3 k

9V
2.2 F

Figure P2.14
1 F

9V

Figure P2.10 P 2.11 In Figure P2.10, what is the maximum voltage the capacitor can charge to and how long does it take for the capacitor to reach 90% of this voltage after opening the switch at t = 0? P 2.12 In Figure P2.10, we want to double the time constant by using a larger capacitor. Find the standard capacitance value that is nearest to your desired value. Hint: Visit an online electronic store for the standard capacitance values. P 2.13 In Figure P2.10, the switch is opened at t = 0. Calculate and plot the time needed for the capacitor to reach 6 V for capacitance values ranging from 1 to 10 F. P 2.14 The capacitor in Figure P2.14 is uncharged prior to closing the switch at t = 0. a) Find the capacitor voltage and current immediately after closing the switch; b) Find the maximum voltage the capacitor can charge to if the switch is kept

P 2.15 Assume the capacitor is not charged prior to closing the switch at t = 0 in Figure P2.14. Find the time constant for charging the capacitor. P 2.16 The switch in Figure P2.16 is opened at t = 0. a) Find the capacitor voltage and current immediately after opening the switch; b) Find the maximum voltage the capacitor can charge to if the switch is left open for a very long time.
4.7 k

9V
10 F 2.2 k

Figure P2.16 P 2.17 In Figure P2.16, determine how much time is needed for the capacitor to reach 2 V after opening the switch at t = 0. P 2.18 The switch in Figure P2.18 is opened at t = 0. Obtain a dierential equation for the capacitor voltage, vc (t) for t 0. Solve the dierential equation. P 2.19 Find the time constant for charging the capacitor in Figure P2.18. Assume R1 =

65

R1 C

10 k 47

Vs
R2

R3

9V

220 F

Figure P2.21 Figure P2.18 the capacitor voltage decreases with time; c) Use your result to nd the expression for the capacitor current for t 0; d) Use the current expression found in part (c) to nd the current immediately after closing the switch, i.e. at t = 0+ Verify that your result matches the current found using the equivalent circuit in the previous problem. P 2.23 Repeat the previous two problems for the circuit shown in Figure P2.23.

220 , R2 = 150 , R3 = 680 and C = 0.033 nF . P 2.20 Assume Vs = 9 V in Figure P2.18. Use the component values given in the previous problem to nd the current owing through R3 , a) immediately after opening the switch at t = 0 and b) 1 ms after opening the switch. P 2.21 Assume the switch in Figure P2.21 is kept closed for a long time to charge the 1.5 k capacitor and then opened at t = 0 disconnecting the battery from the circuit. 1.0 F a) Construct and equivalent circuit to 9V nd the maximum voltage the capaci4.7 k tor can charge to and use your circuit to 2.2 k nd this voltage; b) What is the capacitor voltage immediately after opening the switch? c) Construct an equivalent circuit to nd the capacitor current immediately after opening the switch and Figure P2.23 use your circuit to nd this current. P 2.22 When the switch in Figure P2.21 is opened, P 2.24 The capacitor in Figure P2.24 is uncharged prior to closing the switch. The the capacitor begins to discharge because LED in parallel with the capacitor has it is disconnected from the battery. a) a turn-on voltage of 1.7 V. a) The LED Obtain the dierential equation that dedoes not light up when the switch is closed. scribes the circuit for t 0; b) Solve the Explain why; b) Derive an expression dierential equation to determine how

66

describing how the LED voltage changes with time; c) Use your expression to determine how much time has to pass to turn on the LED.
10 k

9V

220 F

Figure P2.24

Chapter 3 Periodic Signals in Time Domain

The voltage sources you have seen in the rst two chapters were constant or DC voltage sources. In this chapter, we will discuss characteristics of time-varying sources and we will use them in simple circuits with resistive elements. A commonly used term for time-varying signals is Alternating Current or AC signals.

3.1

Periodic Signals: Period and Frequency

A periodic signal is a time-varying voltage waveform that repeats itself continuously. An example is shown in Figure 3.1 , which is very similar to the waveforms produced by musical instruments. A periodic voltage waveform v(t) satises the equation, v(t) = v(t + T ) (3.1.1)

where T is referred to as the period of the signal. Note that we used a lower-case v for the voltage in the above equation. In this book, lower case letters will be used for time-varying signals whether they are periodic or not. The frequency, f , of a periodic signal is the number of periods (or cycles) in one second. While cycles/second is occasionally used as the unit of frequency, its standard unit is Hertz (Hz)1 . The frequency of a waveform can be determined from the period using, f= 1 T (3.1.2)

After Heinrich Hertz, Figure 3.2

67

68

20 15 10

Voltage (V)

5 0 5 10 15 20 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04

Time (s)

Figure 3.1 : A periodic waveform similar to those produced by musical instruments.

Figure 3.2 : Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894), German scientist, did his early work on the nature of electromagnetic waves

69

vs (t)
5V

T = 2 ms Vp-p = 5 V 1 2 3 4 5 6 t (ms)

Figure 3.3 : A square wave with a duty cycle of 50%

3.2

Square Wave

A square wave is a periodic waveform that cycles between two discrete voltage levels. An example is shown in Figure 3.3 . The percentage of time a square wave spends at the high voltage level is called the duty cycle of the square wave. The waveform in Figure 3.3 has a duty cycle of 50%. Lets now consider the square wave in Figure 3.4 , which cycles between 0 and 5 V at a frequency of 100 Hz. The duty cycle of the square wave is 25 %. Suppose we apply this voltage waveform to a 10 k resistor. Equivalent circuits can be constructed using constant voltage sources to analyze the circuit behavior in dierent regions of the square wave. As shown, when the voltage level is high, the circuit is equivalent to a resistor connected to a 5 V battery and the current owing through the resistor can be found using Ohms law as 0.5 mA. When the voltage level is zero, the battery can be replaced by a short-circuit and the current in the loop is zero. One of the discrete voltage levels of a square wave can be negative as shown in Figure 3.5 . In this example, when the square wave switches to - 5 V, the current ow becomes negative, which implies that the current ow is counter-clockwise or opposite to the current direction shown on the equivalent circuit. The duty cycle of this square wave is also 25 %. It should be clear from the above discussion that when a square wave is applied to a resistor, the resulting current waveform is also a square wave and the two waveforms are related to each other by Ohms Law.

3.3

Sinusoidal Wave
v(t) = Vo cos(2f t) (3.3.1)

A sinusoidal voltage waveform is a periodic signal of the form

where Vo is the amplitude, f is the frequency. Sine wave and sinusoid are other names commonly used to refer to sinusoidal waveforms. A 100 Hz sinusoid with an amplitude of 1 V is shown in Figure 3.6 . The peak-to-peak value, Vpp of a sinusoid is the voltage dierence between the two peaks and it is equal to twice the amplitude, Vo .

70

vs (t)
5V

10 i>0

20

30

40 i=0

t (ms)

5V

vR (t)

vR (t)

vR (t) = 5 V

vR (t) = 0 V

Figure 3.4 : When a square wave is applied to a resistor, the current can be found by using equivalent circuits for dierent regions of the input waveform. When the square wave voltage is zero, the voltage source is replaced by a short-circuit.

vs (t)
5V

10 -5V i>0

20

30

40

t (ms)

i<0

5V

vR (t)

5V

vR (t)

vR (t) = 5 V

vR (t) = - 5 V

Figure 3.5 : When the square wave voltage is negative, the polarity of the battery in the equivalent circuit is reversed such that it forces a counter-clockwise current through the loop.

71

0.5

Amplitude

Voltage (V)

0
Period

0.5

1 0 0.5 1 1.5 x 10 2
5

Time (s)

Figure 3.6 : A sinusoid Sinusoids are extremely important in electrical engineering. The 120V/60 Hz voltage available at electrical outlets is a sinusoid 2 , a fact that placed the signal on the forefront of all waveforms since the beginning of electrical engineering. There is however a far more important reason for giving the sinusoid a special place amongst all other waveforms. In Chapter 5, you will learn that any periodic signal, even the square wave with its sharp corners can be represented as an innite sum of sinusoids. This is a subject of great importance and it provides the key to signal analysis in frequency domain.

Example 3.1. Find the amplitude and frequency of the signal v(t) = (10mV ) cos(200t)
Solution: Comparing v(t) with the equation 3.3.1, the amplitude is found as 10mV . The argument of the cosine is 2f = 200, from which we can nd the frequency as f= The period can be found as T =
2

200 = 31.83 Hz 2

1 f

= 0.03141s

We should make a quick note here that 120 V is not the amplitude but the root-mean-square value of the sinusoid, which will be covered in Chapter 4.

72

= /3

Voltage (V)

0.5 0 0.5 1 0 0.5 1 1.5 x 10 2

5

=0 Time (s)

Figure 3.7 : Two sinusoids with phase angles of = 0 and = /3 radians.

3.3.1

Phase Angle of a Sinusoidal Waveform

The more general formula for a sinusoidal waveform is given by v(t) = Vo cos[2f (t + to )] (3.3.2)

where to is an oset or time delay, which can be positive or negative. A positive to shifts the waveform to the left. The above equation is commonly expressed in the form v(t) = Vo cos(2f t + ) where is the phase angle in radians given by = 2f to (3.3.4) (3.3.3)

The phase angle, is required to be in the interval < < . If is positive, the waveform is shifted to the left, if it is negative, it is shifted to the right. This is demonstrated in Figure 3.7 , which shows two sinusoids with the same amplitude and frequency but dierent phase angles of = 0 and = /3 radians. The phase angle is negative because the waveform can be obtained by shifting the cosine function to the right by /3 radians.

Example 3.2. Find the amplitude, frequency and the phase angle of the sinusoid shown in Figure
3.8 and write a mathematical expression for the waveform. Solution: By inspection, we determine the amplitude and the period as 2 V and 10 s respectively. From

73

Voltage (V)

1 0 1 2 3 5

10 x 10

15
6

Time (s)

Figure 3.8 : A sinusoid with a non-zero phase angle. We can see that the waveform can be obtained by shifting the cos(2f t) function to the left.
Eq. 5.1.1, the frequency is found as 100 kHz. Thus, we know that the sinusoid is in the form v(t) = 2V cos(2105 t + ) where is the non-zero phase angle to be determined. First, we see that the waveform has a nonzero phase angle. We can also see that the waveform can be obtained by shifting (2V ) cos(2105 t) to the left, so the phase angle must be positive. To determine the phase angle, we rst determine the amount of shift on the time axis, which we nd as T /4 seconds or 2.5 s. Then, the phase angle can be determined as = 2f to Another approach to nding the phase angle is to remember that one period corresponds to 360 or 2 radians, T/4 seconds corresponds to 90 or /2 radians. Therefore, the sinusoid can be expressed as v(t) = (2V ) cos(2105 t + /2) Using the trigonometric identity cos( + /2) = sin() the above waveform can also be written as

74

iR (t)

vs (t)

vR (t)

ground

Figure 3.9 : A simple circuit with an AC voltage source and a resistor.

v(t) = (2V ) sin(2105 t)

Example 3.3. Find the phase angle of the waveform, v(t) = (10mV ) sin(200t)
Solution: To nd the phase angle we have to express the waveform as a cosine function. Using the trigonometric identity cos( /2) = sin() the waveform can be written as v(t) = (10mV ) cos(200t /2) which gives us the phase angle as 90 or /2 radians.

3.4

Time-Varying Signals in Circuits with Resistive Elements

The fundamental laws you have learned in the previous chapter are applicable to time-varying signals as well. In this section, we will go over several examples to demonstrate how you can analyze circuits with time-varying voltage and current signals.

75

3.4.1

Ohms Law

When a periodic voltage waveform is applied to a resistive element as in Figure 3.9 , the current through the resistor can be found using Ohms law as v(t) (3.4.1) R which indicates that the functional form of the current waveform is identical to the voltage waveform. For instance, for a sinusoidal voltage waveform, v(t) = Vo cos(2f t + ) the current, i(t) is given by i(t) = Vo cos(2f t + ) R Thus, the current through the element is also a sinusoid with the same frequency and phase angle. The + signs next to the top terminal of the voltage source has a special meaning. It indicates that an equation used to describe the characteristics of the waveform gives the voltage at that node relative to ground level. i(t) =

3.4.2

Kircho s Laws

When the voltages across the elements of a closed loop change with time, Kirchos voltage can be expressed as
n

vk (t) = v1 (t) + v2 (t) + . . . + vn (t) = 0

k=1

(3.4.2)

The + sign next to a time-varying voltage source becomes important when there are two or more time-varying sources in the circuit. For example, consider the circuit in Figure 3.10 with two time-varying voltage sources and a resistor. Both sources have their + signs next to their top terminals. Now suppose both voltage sources generate identical sinusoids (amplitude, frequency and phase). In other words, when the voltage level at one of those terminals is positive and rising, the voltage at the other other top terminal must behave exactly the same way. This in turn means that when the left source is forcing a clockwise current, the right source must be forcing a current in the opposite direction. Applying Kirchos voltage law to the loop results in the following equation: v1 (t) vR (t) v2 (t) = 0 If the voltage waveforms produced by the two sources are identical, i.e. v1 (t) = v2 (t), they cancel each other leaving zero volt across the resistor, which implies that there cannot be any current owing in the loop at any time.

76

iR (t)

v1 (t)

v2 (t)

Figure 3.10 : A circuit with two time-varying sources and a resistor

ix (t)

i2 (t) R2

v1 (t)

R1

i1 (t)

v2 (t)

Figure 3.11 : A circuit with two time-varying voltage sources. When we have time varying currents entering or leaving a circuit node, Kirchos current law can be applied to the node according to
n

ik (t) = i1 (t) + i2 (t) + . . . + in (t) = 0

k=1

(3.4.3)

Example 3.4. Find the current, ix (t) in Figure 3.11 . The two voltage sources generate the
waveforms v1 (t) = (10 V ) cos(2100t + /3) and v2 (t) = (20 V ) cos(250t /4). R1 = R2 = 10k. Solution: Since R1 is in parallel with v1 (t), the voltage across R1 can be written as vR1 (t) = v1 (t) = (10 V ) cos(2100t + /3) The current, i1 (t) can then be found using Ohms law as Assume

77

i1 (t) =

(10 V ) cos(2100t + /3) = (1 mA) cos(2100t + /3) 10k

Applying Kirchos voltage law to the outermost loop including v1 , v2 and R2 the voltage across the resistor can be found as vR2 (t) = v1 (t) v2 (t) = (10 V ) cos(2100t + /3) (20 V ) cos(250t /4) Using Ohms law, we can nd i2 (t) as i2 (t) = (1 mA) cos(2100t + /3) (2 mA) cos(250t /4) Applying Kirchos current law to the top node we obtain, ix (t) = i1 (t) + i2 (t) which yields, ix (t) = (2 mA) [cos(2100t + /3) cos(250t /4)] The resulting current waveform is shown in Figure 3.12 . It is important to note that while the two added current waveforms were both sinusoids, the resulting waveform is not. You can predict from this example that by adding dierent sinusoids we can create innitely many dierent waveforms. This forms the basis for Fourier Series representation of periodic signals, which we shall discuss in Chapter 5.

Current (mA)

5 0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

Time (s)

Figure 3.12 : The current waveform, ix (t) is obtained by adding sinusoidal current waveforms at two dierent frequencies.

78

3.5

Average or DC Value of a Periodic Signal

The time average of a periodic signal over a single period is referred to as its average or DC value. The average value of a periodic signal can be found by computing the time average according to 1 T VDC = v(t)dt (3.5.1) T 0 which is equivalent to nding the area under the signal within one period and dividing the area by the period. The DC value of a sinusoid is zero because within one period we always have a positive area corresponding to the portion of the signal above the time axis and another equal but negative area under. Remembering this way of thinking will come very handy when we need to nd the average value of simple signals such as square waves.

vs (t) vR (t) VDC

Figure 3.13 : A resistor connected to a DC and AC voltage source in series. Now consider Figure 3.13 , which shows a circuit with a battery connected in series with an AC voltage source. According to Kirchos voltage law, the voltage across the resistor is given by vR (t) = vs (t) + VDC (3.5.2)

As an example, vs (t) = 0.5 cos(2105 t) V and VDC = 2 V . Then, the resistor voltage is vR (t) = 0.5 cos(2105 t) + 2 V and it is plotted in Figure 3.14 . Note that adding a DC value to a sinusoid is equivalent to shifting the signal up by an amount equal to the DC value. The voltage across the resistor has a DC value of 2 V. Finding the DC value of a sinusoid is rather straightforward since the DC value appears as a constant added to the cosine function. For more complex signals, we have to use equation 3.5.1. The following example demonstrates the use of this equation.

79

3 2.5

Voltage (V)

2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0

DC Value = 2 V

0.5

1.5

2.5 x 10

3
5

Time (s)

Figure 3.14 : A sinusoidal voltage waveform with a DC value of 2 V. The amplitude of the waveform is 0.5 V.

vs (t) = (t - a) 2 v = t2

10

t (s)

Figure 3.15 : A periodic waveform consisting of repeating parabolas

Example 3.5. Find the average value of the waveform shown in Figure 3.15 , which consists of
repeating parabolic segments of the form, vs (t) = (t a)2 where a = 0, 2, 4, , 2n. Solution: The period of the waveform is 2 s. To apply equation 3.5.1 to the waveform, consider the rst period for 0 t < 2. The equation that represents the waveform in this time interval is vs (t) = t2 . Substituting this function in equation 3.5.1 the DC value can be found as

80

vin(t)
5V

1 -5V

ms

+ vR(t) 10 k

(a)

vin(t)

vR(t)
4V (b) 1 2 (c) 3 4 ms

Figure 3.16 : a)The voltage waveform of the AC source b)Circuit with a AC source and Diode c)Output voltage waveform across Resistor.

VDC =

1 T

T 0

vs (t)dt =

1 2

2 0

t2 dt =

1 t3 2 | 23 0

1.33 V

3.6

Circuits with Time-Varying Signals and Diodes

When a time-varying voltage source is used in a circuit including a diode we analyze the circuit for dierent regions of the voltage source since the state of the diode may change depending on the polarity and the magnitude of the voltage source. We will follow the same procedure introduced in chapter one to determine the state of the diode, which involves nding the voltage across the diode assuming it is o.

Example 3.6. The square wave shown in Figure 3.16 (a) is applied to the series connection of
a resistor and a diode. First show that the voltage waveform across the resistor is the waveform given in Figure 3.16 (c) and then nd the average value of the waveform. Assume the diode has a turn-on voltage of 1.0 V. Solution: When vin (t) = 5 V the diode is forward biased and current ows in the loop. The voltage across

81

i1 (t) R1 vin(t)

iD (t) i2 (t) R2
(a)

vin (t)
6V

vD (t)
1V 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 ms -2V 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 ms

-6V (b) (c)

Figure 3.17 : a)Circuit with a AC source, Diode and Two Resistors. b)The voltage waveform of the AC source c)Output voltage waveform across diode.
the resistor can be found using Kirchos voltage law as vR (t) = vin (t) V = 5 1 = 4 V When vin (t) = 5 V , the diode is reverse biased and there is no current ow in the loop. Hence, the voltage drop across the resistor is zero. Therefore, the resistor voltage cycles between 0 and 4 V as shown in Figure 3.16 (c). Since the waveform spends half of its period at 4 V, its average or DC value is 2 V. Alternatively, VDC = 1 T
T 0

vin (t)dt =

area 4 V 1 ms = =2V T 2 ms

Example 3.7. Consider the circuit shown in Figure 3.17 .a. The square wave applied to the
circuit is given in Figure 3.17 .b. First show that the voltage waveform across the diode looks as shown in gure 3.17 .c and then nd its average value. Assume that R1 = 10k, R2 = 5k and v = 1V for the diode. Solution:

82

First we need to determine if the diode is on when vin (t) = 6 V . We begin by assuming that the diode is o and nd the voltage across the terminals of the diode, which is the voltage across the 5k resistor. When the diode is o, it is equivalent to an open-circuit. Removing the diode from the circuit puts the two resistors in series allowing us to use voltage division to nd the voltage across the 5k resistor. Since both resistors are 10 k, they share the source voltage equally. Therefore, the voltage across R2 is 2 V. Since this voltage is greater than the turn-on voltage of the diode, we conclude that the diode is on. Therefore, the voltage across the diode is equal to the turn-on voltage of the diode or 1 V. When the input voltage is - 2 V, the diode is reverse biased and it is o. Replacing the diode by an open-circuit and following the above procedure we nd the voltage across R2 as - 2 V. Combining the two cases we arrive at the waveform shown in gure 3.17 (c). To nd the DC value of the waveform we will follow the simple procedure used in the previous example. Since each period includes a positive and a negative rectangle, the area under the waveform within one period is given by, Area = 1 V 0.1 ms + (2 V ) 0.1 ms = 0.1 V.ms We can nd the DC value by diving this area by the period according to equation 3.5.1: VDC = 0.1 V.ms = 0.5 V 0.2 ms

Example 3.8. Find the DC value of the current owing through R2 in the previous example.
Solution: Since we know the DC value of the voltage across R2 we do not need to nd the current waveform and then nd its average value. Instead, we can nd the DC value of the current by diving the DC value of the voltage by 10k according to Ohms law: 0.5 V = 0.05 mA 10k The minus sign indicates that half the time the current through R2 is owing in a direction opposite to that shown on the circuit. I2,DC =

3.7

Half Wave Rectier

One of the most useful applications of diodes is AC/DC conversion. The rst stage of an AC/DC converter is a full or half-wave rectier. In this section, we will discuss the half-wave rectier and leave the operation of the full-wave rectier to more advanced classes.

83

vin(t)

vout(t)

Figure 3.18 : Half-Wave Rectier The circuit is shown in Figure 3.18 . The AC voltage input to the circuit is usually supplied by a transformer, which reduces the magnitude of the standard 120 V/60 Hz AC outlet voltage to a desired, smaller value. Theoretically, the circuit will work with any AC signal, however, the term half-wave rectier is mostly associated with sinusoidal waveforms. During the positive cycle of the input sinusoid, a clockwise current is forced around the loop. The diode turns on only if the input voltage is greater than the turn-on voltage of the diode. Since the loop has to satisfy Kirchos Voltage Law, the output voltage across the resistor is equal to the input voltage minus the voltage drop across the diode, vout (t) = A cos(2f t + ) V when vin (t) > V (3.7.1)

where we used the fact that the voltage across the diode is equal to V . When the input voltage is less than the turn-on voltage, the diode is o even if the input voltage is positive. Under these conditions, the diode acts as an open-circuit and the output voltage remains zero. When the input voltage is negative, the diode is reverse biased. Since the diode will not allow any current ow in the reverse direction, it acts like an open-circuit resulting in 0 V across the resistor. The resulting output signal shown in 3.19 is a half-wave rectied sinusoid with the same periodicity as the input signal. The signal is not exactly equivalent to the constant voltage generated by a battery, however, since it is always positive it has a nite DC value. In the next chapter, we will learn that by adding a capacitor a much atter output signal can be obtained.

3.8

Circuits with AC and DC Voltage Sources

In this section, we combine AC and DC voltage sources in the same circuit. There is nothing really new that we have to learn to analyze these circuits so we will go ahead and dive into examples. We must however remember the fact that an AC voltage source is represented by

84

A Voltage

A - Vg

Time

Figure 3.19 : Input sinusoid (dashed line) with an amplitude, A and the half-wave rectied sinusoid with a peak voltage of A V

i1(t)

iR2 (t)
A B

i2(t)

R2 v1(t) iR1 (t) R1 R3 iR3 (t) V2

Figure 3.20 : Circuit with a sinusoidal voltage source and a DC Source. a time dependent equation while we just have a voltage value for a DC source.

Example 3.9. Consider the circuit shown in Figure 3.20 . Assume v1 (t) = 3 V cos(21000t) and
V2 = 2 V . Find the currents i1 (t) and i2 (t).Assume that all three resistors are 10 k. Solution: The resistor R1 is parallel with the sinusoidal voltage source and therefore the voltage across R1 is v1 (t). The current owing through R1 can be found using Ohms law as iR1 (t) = 3 V cos(21000t) = 0.3 cos(21000t) mA. 10 k

85

Similarly, since R3 is in parallel with the DC Voltage source V2 , the voltage across R3 is equal to V2 . The current owing through R3 can be found using Ohms law as iR3 (t) = 2V = 0.2mA. 10k

Using Kirchos Voltage law in the outermost loop including both sources and the resistor R2 ,we obtain the voltage across R2 as vR2 (t) = v1 (t) V2 = 3 cos(21000t) 2 V Using Ohms law, the current through R2 can be found as iR2 = vR2 /10k = 0.3 cos(21000t) 0.2 mA. Applying Kirchos current law to node A and solving for i1 (t) we obtain: i1 (t) = iR2 (t) iR1 (t) = 0.6 cos(21000t) + 0.2 mA Now applying Kirchos current law to node B and solving for i2 (t) we obtain i2 (t) = iR2 (t) iR3 (t) = 0.3 cos(21000t) 0.4 mA It is interesting to note that while V2 is a DC Voltage source the current owing through the source has a sinusoidal component forced by v1 (t). Similarly, even though v1 (t) is a purely sinusoidal waveform it has a DC value of 0.2 mA due to the DC voltage source in the circuit.

3.9

Oscilloscope

An Oscilloscope is one of the most helpful test instruments used by electrical and computer engineers. The primary function of an oscilloscope is to display time varying signals on a calibrated screen from which the signal parameters can be graphically obtained. Modern features available on digital oscilloscopes such as the one shown in Figure 3.21 can make the measurements much quicker and easier. Any time varying voltage waveform can be displayed by an oscilloscope. For instance, you can connect a microphone and view the speech waveforms as you speak into the microphone. Oscilloscopes are widely used in testing of analog and digital circuits. Figure 3.22 shows a square wave displayed by a digital oscilloscope made by Agilent. Signal parameters can be measured graphically using the vertical and horizontal grid lines. As an example, lets measure the peak-to-peak value and period of the square wave shown. This particular display was obtained using a vertical calibration of 2 Volts/division and a horizontal calibration of 200 s/division. You can nd these numbers displayed usually at the top of the screen. To measure the peak-to-peak value of the square wave, we count the number of vertical divisions the square wave spans, which we nd as three. Since each

86

Figure 3.21 : A digital oscilloscope made by Textronix. division corresponds to 2 V , the peak-to-peak value of the square wave has to be 6 V . To nd the period, we count the number of horizontal divisions, which in this case is equal to two. Since each horizontal division corresponds to 200 s, the period is determined as 400 s. We can also use the same display to nd the average value of the signal. To do this, we need to locate the zero volt reference, which is indicated by an arrow connected to a ground sign on the far left side of the screen. Using this reference, we can determine the high and low values of the square wave as + 5 V and - 1 V respectively. While the graphical method described above applies to any oscilloscope, digital oscilloscopes can make these measurements automatically and display the numerical results on the screen as shown in Figure 3.22 . The buttons under the screen display the duty cycle, frequency and period of the square wave.

87

Figure 3.22 : A square wave with a duty cycle of 70% displayed on an oscilloscope screen. Digital oscilloscopes can measure the parameters of a periodic signal. The buttons under the screen indicate the duty cycle, frequency and period of the square wave.

88

Problems
P 3.1 Find the amplitude and peak-to-peakvalue of the sinusoidal waveforms listed below. (a) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V (b) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V (c) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t /4) V (d) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t /4) V

(d) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t /4) V P 3.5 Construct a time-domain equation describing the waveform shown in Figure P3.5.

V
10 5

T = 20 ms

10

15

20

t (ms)

P 3.2 Find the frequency and period of the waveforms listed below. (a) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V (b) v(t) = 10 sin(2100t) V (c) v(t) = 10 cos(4100t) V (d) v(t) = 10 cos(100t) V P 3.3 Find the DC value of the signals listed below. Hint: Use trigonometric identities to expand the waveforms where necessary. (a) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V (b) v(t) = 20 + 10 cos(2100t) V (c) v(t) = 20 + 10 cos(2100t) V (d) v(t) = 20 10 cos(2100t) V P 3.4 Find the phase angle of the sinusoidal waveforms listed below. (a) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V (b) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t + /4) V (c) v(t) = 10 cos(2100t + /4) V

-5 -10

Figure P3.5 P 3.6 Suppose the sinusoid shown in Figure P3.5 is applied to a 9.1 k resistor. Construct a time-domain equation for the current owing through the resistor. P 3.7 Construct a time-domain equation describing the waveform shown in Figure P3.7. P 3.8 Suppose the sinusoid shown in Figure P3.5 is applied to a 9.1 k resistor. Construct a time-domain equation for the current owing through the resistor. P 3.9 Find the frequency and the DC value of the signal,v(t) = 10 cos2 (2100t) V . Hint: Use a trigonometric identity to expand the waveform. P 3.10 Find the phase angle of the following sinusoidal waveforms. Hint: Convert the waveforms to cosine functions. (a) v(t) = 10 sin(2100t) V (b) v(t) = 10 sin(2100t + /4) V

89

V
15 10 5

Vertical = 2 V/division Horizontal = 100 s/division

5 -5 -10

10

15

20

t (ms)
Figure P3.12 P 3.13 Given the triangular waveform shown in the oscilloscope display of Figure P3.13, nd a) peak-to-peak value, b) DC value and c) frequency of the waveform.
Vertical = 1 V/division Horizontal = 5 s/division

T = 20 ms
Figure P3.7

(c) v(t) = 10 sin2 (2100t) V P 3.11 Given the square waveform shown in the oscilloscope display of Figure P3.11, nd a) peak-to-peak value, b) DC value c) frequency and d) duty cycle of the waveform.
Vertical = 2 V/division Horizontal = 100 s/division

Figure P3.13 P 3.14 Given the sawtooth waveform shown in the oscilloscope display of Figure P3.14, nd a) peak-to-peak value, b) DC value and c) frequency of the waveform. P 3.15 The triangular waveform shown in Figure P3.13 is applied to a 1 k resistor. Find the average value of the current owing through the resistor. P 3.16 The sawtooth waveform shown in Figure P3.14 is applied to two resistors (10 k

Figure P3.11 P 3.12 Given the square waveform shown in the oscilloscope display of Figure P3.12, nd a) peak-to-peak value, b) DC value c) frequency and d) duty cycle of the waveform.

90

Vertical = 0.1 V/division Horizontal = 1 ns/division

P 3.19 Repeat P4.10for the circuit shown in Figure P4.2.

100

47

3.9 k

vs(t)
Figure P3.14

5V i3(t) i2(t)

i1(t)
and 1 k) connected in series. Find the peak-to-peak value and DC value of the sawtooth waveform on the 1 k resistor. P 3.17 A 2 V battery is connected in series with the function generator supplying the rectangular waveform shown in Figure P3.11. What is the DC value and the peak-topeak value of the resulting signal? P 3.18 The AC signal in Figure P4.10 is a 100 Hz sinusoidal waveform with a DC value of zero and an amplitude of 2 V. Find the currents i1 , i2 , i3 and the voltage across the 3.9 k resistor.

Figure P3.19 P 3.20 The AC signal in Figure P3.20 is a 60 Hz sinusoidal waveform with a DC value of zero and an amplitude of 10 V. The diode is a standard silicon diode (e.g. 1N4001) with a turn-on voltage of 0.7 V. Determine the peak-to-peak to value of the output signal.

vs(t)
100

vR(t)

5V vs(t)

3.9 k

Figure P3.20

i3(t) i1(t) i2(t)

Figure P3.18

P 3.21 Determine what fraction of the period the diode remains on in P3.20. Hint: To keep the diode on, the input voltage has to be at least equal to the turn-on voltage.

91

P 3.22 Determine the DC value of the voltage across the resistor in P3.20. Assume the resistor is 1 k and nd the DC value of the current owing through the resistor. P 3.23 Determine the DC value of the voltage across the resistor in P3.20 if the sinusoidal input source is replaced by the square wave shown in Figure P3.11. P 3.24 Assume the sinusoidal input signal in the half-wave rectier of P3.20 is replaced by a triangular waveform with a peak-to-peak value of 12 V and zero DC oset. Find the DC value of the voltage applied to the resistor.

92

Chapter 4 Electric Power

You must be already familiar with the daily use of the term, electric power and its unit Watt, W. We know that a 100 W light bulb is much brighter than a 40 W bulb. A typical, good quality home system may produce a music power 100 W of music power. The transmission power of a radio station determines how far the electromagnetic waves transmitted by the stations antenna will travel. A typical FM station produces several kilowatts of output power. These are just a few examples from many practical uses of the quantity, electric power. The chapter begins with the physical origins of electric power and consider power dissipation with DC and AC voltage sources. These concepts are then applied to simple circuits with resistive elements. The chapter concludes by an overview of power engineering concepts relevant to the standard household voltage.

4.1

Physics of Electric Power

By denition, power is the work done per unit time, therefore, it is a measure of how fast the work is done. A powerful machine is the one that can produce the most work in the shortest possible time. Lets consider the following example from classical mechanics. When you climb the stairs, the energy stored in your body is used to move your legs, which carry your weight up the stairs by doing work against the gravitational force. By doing so, you burn calories and this body energy is converted to potential energy. The mechanical power you dissipate is determined by how fast you climb the stairs. In theory, electric power is no dierent than the mechanical power but the work is performed by negatively charged electrons moving in an electric eld. As such, the forces involved in the process are electric forces and the power is determined by how fast the electrons move, the intensity of the electric eld and the distance they travel. In Chapter I, we have learned that work, W is done in moving a charged particle from point a to point b in an electric eld. The work done per unit charge (i.e. 1 Coulomb) is the 93

94

potential dierence or voltage, Vab , which can be expressed as Vab = Wab Q (4.1.1)

Therefore, if 10 joules of work is to be done to carry a charge of 5 Coulombs from a to b, then, the voltage Vab is equal to 2 volts. The following example applies this concept to electrons moving in an electric eld.

Example 4.1. A battery applies 10 V to an ordinary resistor. Calculate the work done in moving
1000 electrons between the two end of the resistor. Solution: The potential dierence between the two ends of the resistor is 10 V. This dierence establishes an electric eld in the resistor and the work associated with moving the electrons is done by this eld. Every electron carries a net charge of 1.6 1019 C. To nd the work done in moving 1000 electrons, we can use equation 4.1.1. Wab = QVab = 10 V 1000 1.6 1019 C = 1.6 1015 Joules

To nd the electric power associated with moving charges, we need to know how fast the charges move or the electric current, I in amperes. Recall from Chapter I that the electric current, I is expressed as Q (4.1.2) t where Q is the net charge passing through a surface in a conductor in time, t. The product of the equations, 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 yields the work done per unit time or the electric power, P. I= P = Therefore, electric power is expressed as P =VI (4.1.3) W Q W = Q t t

which is the main subject of this chapter. In the remaining sections, we will apply equation 4.1.3 to practical circuits with DC and AC voltage sources. We will also look at essentials

95

Figure 4.1 : A simple circuit with a DC voltage source and a resistor. of power distribution as two subjects that are important to electrical engineers specializing in power systems or power electronics.

4.2

DC Voltage Sources and Resistive Loads

Lets now consider the simple circuit of Figure 4.1 consisting of a DC voltage source and a resistor. The voltage, V produced by the voltage source is applied to the resistor and a current, I, ows in the loop. The electric power dissipated on the resistor is given by equation 4.1.3. According to this equation, if the voltage applied to the resistor is 1 V and the current owing in the loop is 1 A, the power dissipated on the resistor is 1 W. Using Ohms law, we can rewrite equation 4.1.3 in two dierent forms. Substituting V = IR in 4.1.3 for the voltage, we obtain, P = V I = (IR)I = I 2 R Alternatively, if we substitute I = V /R for the current, we obtain, P =VI =V V V2 = R R (4.2.2) (4.2.1)

All three forms of the electric power equation are commonly used. In the circuit of Figure 4.1 , as a result of the current owing in the loop, the resistor heats up and begins to radiate heat. In this process, electrical energy supplied by the voltage source is rst used to move the electrons, converted to heat as the electrons travel through the sea of atoms and electrons and nally lost to ambient via radiation. It may help to think that heat is produced as a results of electrons hung and pung as they travel through the resistor, which resists electrons motion. Therefore, we can view this simple circuit as an energy converter since the circuit receives electrical energy from the voltage source and

96

Figure 4.2 : Resistors with dierent power ratings. produces heat in return. In practice, all electric heaters used in ovens, hair dryers etc. are resistors operating on this principle. The resistors used in electric circuits also come with their power ratings. Figure 4.2 shows resistors with dierent power ratings. As the power rating increases, the resistor becomes larger. This allows heat to radiate from a larger surface area to achieve more eective cooling.

Example 4.2. A 12 V battery is connected to two resistors in series. Assume the resistances are
R1 = 100 and R2 = 500 . Find the power dissipated on each resistor. Solution: Applying the voltage division rule, the voltage across each resistor can be found as V1 = V2 = 100 12 V = 2 V 100 + 500 500 12 V = 10 V 100 + 500

We can now apply equation 4.2.2 to nd the power dissipated on each resistor. P1 = P2 = V12 (2 V )2 = = 0.04 W = 40 mW R1 100 (10 V )2 V22 = = 0.2 W = 200 mW R2 500

97

VR

Vs

VD

Figure 4.3 : A simple circuit with a resistor and a diode.

Lets apply our new knowledge to a slightly more complex circuit shown in Figure 4.3 . In this circuit, the voltage produced by the DC voltage source is shared between a resistor and a diode. Our goal is to calculate the power dissipated on both elements. We will assume that the voltage source is able to provide the voltage needed to turn on the diode. Otherwise, current can not ow in the loop and the power dissipation on both elements is zero according to equation 4.1.3. When the diode is on, the voltage across the diode is equal to the turn-on voltage, V , which leaves VR = Vs V on the resistor according to Kirchos voltage law. The power dissipated across the resistor can then be found using equation 4.2.2 as PR =
2 VR (Vs V )2 = R R

To nd the power dissipated on the diode, we can use neither 4.2.2 nor 4.2.1 because these equations are only valid for linear resistors. To use them, we need a resistance, R, independent of the voltage across the element and we can not dene such a resistance for the diode. On the other hand, equation 4.1.3 is valid for any element, linear or non-linear. To use this equation, we must know both the diode voltage and current. Since we know the voltage across the resistor, the loop current can be found as I= VR (Vs V ) = R R

The power dissipated on the diode is then given by PD = VD ID = V (Vs V ) R

Similar to resistors, diodes have dierent power ratings as well. Figure 4.4 shows dierent

98

Figure 4.4 : Power diodes can be mounted on heat sinks for ecient cooling. silicon power diodes with dierent power ratings. These diodes are designed so they can be mounted on heat sinks for ecient cooling via radiation.

Example 4.3. Suppose Vs = 9 V , V = 0.7 V and R = 1 k in the circuit of Figure 4.3 . Find
the power dissipated on the resistor and the diode. Solution: The voltage across the resistor is VR = 9 V 0.7 V = 8.3 V . The power dissipated on the resistor is then equal to PR = (8.3 V )2 /1 k 68.9 mW . The current owing in the loop is given by I = 8.3 V /1 k = 8.3 mA. The power dissipated on the diode is then equal to PD = 8.3 mA 0.7 V = 5.81 mW

4.3

AC Voltage Sources and Power

How can we calculate the power dissipation on a resistive element when the voltage applied to the circuit is time varying? Will the power dissipation also change with time? If so, can we calculate an average power? These are the questions we shall try to answer in this section. We will introduce two new terms, instantaneous power and average (or real) power, which

99

i(t)

v(t)

Figure 4.5 : A simple circuit with an AC voltage source and a resistor. will lead us to the root-mean-square (or RMS) voltage, which is commonly used quantity in referring to the strength of AC signals.

4.3.1

Instantaneous Power

Consider the simple circuit shown in Figure 4.5 , which consists of a time varying voltage source, v(t) connected to an ordinary resistor. Since both the resistor voltage and current are time-varying signals, their product, i.e. the power dissipated on the resistor must also be a time varying waveform. We dene the instantaneous power, p(to ) as the product of the voltage v(t) and current, i(t) at the instant, t = to . Therefore, the instantaneous power, p(t) is given by, p(t) = v(t)i(t) (4.3.1) Since the load in Figure 4.5 is a simple linear resistor obeying Ohms law, we can write the equivalents of the equations 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 for time-varying signals given as p(t) = and p(t) = i2 (t)R We will now apply these concepts to a few standard signals. Square Wave and Instantaneous Power Suppose the square wave shown in Figure 4.6 .a is applied to a 100 resistor. The signal has two discrete voltage levels, VH = 3 V and VL = 2 V . We can use equation 4.3.2 to calculate the instantaneous power dissipated on the resistor at each voltage level, which yields the p(t) (4.3.3) v 2 (t) R (4.3.2)

100

vR(t) VH = 3 V

(a)

t VL = - 2 V p(t) 90 mW (b)

40 mW t
Figure 4.6 : a) A square wave applied to a 100 resistor, b) Resulting instantaneous power waveform.

101

Voltage (V)

2 0 2 4 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02

(a)

time (s)
0.05

Power (W)

0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02

(b)

time (s)
Figure 4.7 : a) A sinusoidal wave applied to a 100 resistor, b) Resulting instantaneous power waveform.

waveform shown in Figure 4.6 .b. Note that instead of using equation 4.3.2, we could have divided the voltage waveform, v(t) by 100 to nd the current waveform, i(t) and then use equation 4.3.1 to nd p(t). It is important to understand that the dissipated power is positive even when the input voltage is negative. If this result hits you with surprise, you must realize that when the input voltage switches from 3 V to 2 V , all that is happening is that the direction of the loop current is changing from clockwise to counter-clockwise. If you are comfortable with this concept, we can raise the following critical question: Since power dissipation is the energy lost per unit time, can the current direction have anything to do with power? The answer is no because the electrons will be hung and pung no matter how they ow. As a result of the current ow, the resistor will warm up and radiate heat to the ambient. This will happen regardless of the current direction or the polarity of the input voltage.

102

Sinusoidal Wave and Instantaneous Power Now lets consider the case of a pure sinusoid, v(t) = Vp cos(2f t) applied to a resistor. Since the load is a resistor obeying Ohms law, we shall again use equation 4.3.2 to nd the instantaneous power. This yields, Vp2 cos2 (2f t) v 2 (t) = R R which can be further simplied using the trigonometric identity, p(t) = cos2 = cos 2 + 1 2 (4.3.4)

(4.3.5)

Substituting the above identity in the p(t) equation we obtain, p(t) = Vp2 [1 + cos(22f t)] 2R (4.3.6)

Figure 4.7 shows an example voltage waveform, v(t) = 2 cos(2100t) applied to a 100 resistor and the resulting instantaneous power waveform, p(t). First, we note that p(t) is always positive as it should be with a resistive load. The frequency of the p(t) waveform is twice the frequency of the applied voltage waveform. The waveform is raised to a DC o-set such that at the minimum point of the sinusoidal waveform the instantaneous power is zero. Even though the current direction is constantly switching between clockwise and counter clockwise, the power dissipation is always positive, i.e., regardless of the current direction, electrical energy is always converted to heat.

Example 4.4. The voltage waveform measured across a 1 F capacitor is v(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V . Find the instantaneous power dissipated on the capacitor.
Solution: Since the capacitor is not a resistive element, we can not use equations 4.3.2 or 4.3.3, however, equation 4.3.1 is valid for any load resistive or not. To use this equation, we must rst nd the capacitor current. Using the I-V characteristic of a capacitor, we can nd the capacitor current as ic (t) = C dvc (t) dt

= 1 F

d [10 cos(2100t) V ] dt = 0.002 sin(2100t) A

103

We can now nd the instantaneous power using equation 4.3.1. p(t) = v(t)i(t) = 10 cos(2100t) V 0.002 sin(2100t) A = 0.02 cos(2100t) sin(2100t) Using the trigonometric identity, sin 2 = 2 sin cos , the above equation can be written as p(t) = 0.01 sin(2200t) To simplify the result even further, the minus sign can be absorbed in the sinusoid by inserting a phase angle of in its argument. p(t) = 0.01 sin(2200t ) Therefore, the instantaneous power is a sinusoid with a frequency of 200 Hz, i.e. twice the frequency of the original voltage waveform. Therefore, unlike the resistive loads we have considered before, the power dissipated on the capacitor is not always positive. Is this an anomaly? Not really! If positive power is indicative of energy lost, negative power is indicative of energy gained. As such, a capacitor does not really dissipate power like a resistor. Instead, it stores and releases energy following the input waveform.

4.3.2

Average Power
varying average average (4.3.7)

In the previous section, we have seen that the instantaneous power, p(t), is a time signal. Just like nding the average value of a voltage waveform, we can nd the value of the instantaneous power. Assuming that p(t) is a periodic waveform, the power can be determined from 1 T p(t)dt P = T 0

The above equation rst nds the area under p(t) within a period, T, and then, divides the area by the period to nd the average. Because the waveform is periodic, it suces to evaluate the average for a single period of the waveform. If p(t) is a simple waveform (e.g. a square wave), we may be able to nd the area under the signal without integration. Therefore, it is convenient to express equation 4.3.7 as P = Area under p(t) within T T (4.3.8)

Example 4.5. Find the average power dissipated on the resistor in Figure 4.6 .

104

(a)

(b)

Vdc

v(t)

Figure 4.8 : The two circuits will dissipate the same average power if the RMS value of the AC voltage source is equal to Vdc .

Solution: Since the instantaneous power has already been found, all we have to do is nd its average value using equation 4.3.8 P = 0.09 T + 0.04 T 2 2 = 0.065 W T

Example 4.6. Find the average power dissipated on the resistor in Example 4.7 .
Solution: The instantaneous power dissipated on the resistor was found as p(t) = 20 + 20 cos(2200t) mW To nd the average value of this equation, we can use equation 4.3.7, however, there is a much easier solution than integrating the cosine function. Lets consider each term separately because the average value of the whole function is equal to the sum of the average values of its components. The rst term is a constant and the average value of the constant is the constant itself. The second term is a pure cosine function and the area under a pure sinusoid is zero. Therefore, the average power is equal to 20 mW.

In power engineering, the average power given by equation 4.3.7 is commonly referred to as real power. In this book, we will stick to the term, average power except when we calculate the power in problems related to the standard household voltage, power generation and distribution, i.e. concepts relevant to power engineering.

105

4.4

Root-Mean-Square Voltage and Current

Consider the two circuits shown in Figure 4.8 . They are very similar other than their voltage sources. We note that we impose no restrictions on the AC voltage source. It can be generating any arbitrary waveform. With the DC source, the power dissipated on the resistor is given by P =
2 Vdc R

With the AC voltage source, we can calculate an average power dissipation if we know what the waveform looks like. To do this, we rst nd the instantaneous power, p(t) using equation ?? and then compute its average value using equation 4.3.7. This yields, P = 1 T
T 0

v 2 (t) dt R

2 Suppose now that the average power found above is identical to Vdc /R. Equating the two power equations and solving for the voltage, Vdc , we obtain,

VRM S =

1 T

v 2 (t)dt
0

(4.4.1)

where we have switched the voltage Vdc with VRM S , the root-mean-square voltage because this is the name given to this special voltage. Therefore, if Vdc = VRM S , the two circuits are equivalent in terms of the average power dissipated on their resistors. This equivalency provides us a new tool, a convenient standard in quantifying the strength of AC signals. We need such a tool because not all AC signals can be t into a few categories. We can also refer to the RMS value of an AC current. For instance, in Figure 4.8 .b, there will be a current, i(t) owing in the loop due to the AC voltage source. The RMS value of the current can be found from IRM S = 1 T
T

i2 (t)dt
0

(4.4.2)

We note that equations 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 have exactly the same form. Indeed, this is a mathematical form that applies to any function. To nd the RMS value of a periodic function, f (), we execute the following procedure: 1. Find the square of the function, f () f 2 () 2. Find the average value of f 2 ()
1 T T 0

f 2 ()dt

106

3. Find the square root of the above average

1 T

T 0

f 2 ()dt

4.4.1

RMS value of a Pure Sinusoid

We will now apply equation 4.4.1 to the pure sinusoidal voltage waveform, v(t) = Vp cos(2f t+ ). Substituting v(t) in equation 4.4.1 we obtain, VRM S = Vp2 T
T

cos2 (2f t + )dt

0

Application of the trigonometric identity 4.3.5 to the cosine squared term yields, VRM S = Rearranging the terms, VRM S = Vp2 2T
T T

Vp2 T

T 0

1 + cos[2(2f t + )] dt 2

dt +
0 0

cos[2(2f t + )] dt

In the above equation, the second integration computes the area under the sinusoid, cos[2(f t+ )], which has to be equal to zero. It is important to note that the area under a sinusoid is always zero unless the integration includes a partial cycle of the waveform. In our case, the frequency of the sinusoid is 2f = 2/T and the limits of the integration are from 0 to T , hence, the integration computes the area under two full cycles of the sinusoid. After evaluating the rst integral and substituting zero for the second one we nd the RMS value of a pure sinusoid as Vp VRM S = (4.4.3) 2 We must remember the above equation because the sinusoid is such a basic waveform that its RMS value will be frequently needed throughout the rest of this book. Before we conclude this section, we need to emphasize again the fact that equation 4.4.3 is valid only for pure sinusoids. This means that if the sinusoid has a DC oset, its RMS Value will be entirely dierent. We will discuss this special case in the next section.

4.4.2

RMS value of a Sinusoid with a DC Value

Now we consider the sinusoid, v(t) = Vdc + Vp cos(2f t) shown in Figure 4.9 . Our goal is to nd the RMS value of this waveform or underline the fact that we can not use equation 4.4.3 when we do not have a pure sinusoid. Even the presence of a DC value will change the

107

v(t) Vp Vdc t
Figure 4.9 : A sinusoidal voltage with a DC o-set.

calculation substantially. At this point, we have no choice but to employ equation 4.4.1, in the next chapter we will learn to look at this problem from a dierent angle. Substituting the waveform in equation 4.4.1, we obtain 1 T
T 0

VRM S =

[Vdc + Vp cos(2f t)]2 dt

Expanding the argument of the integral yields, VRM S =

2 Vdc T T

dt +
0

2Vdc Vp T

cos(2f t) dt +
0

Vp2 T

cos2 (2f t) dt
0

The above equation is not as complex as it may seem at a rst glance. The rst integration 2 yields just the constant, Vdc . The second integral nds the area under the sinusoid, cos(2f t), hence, it has to be equal to zero. The argument of the second integral can be expanded using the trigonometric identity 4.3.5 as we have done in the previous section. After these simplications we obtain the expression, VRM S =
2 Vdc

Vp2 + 2T

[1 + cos(4f t)] dt
0

Following the procedure used in the previous section, we can show that Vp2 2T
T 0

Vp2 [1 + cos(4f t)] dt = 2

where, we have again used the fact that the area under a sinusoidal waveform is zero. Therefore, the RMS value of the sinusoid is given by

108

VRM S =

2 Vdc +

Vp2 2

(4.4.4)

4.5

Power Engineering

This entire section is dedicated to a specic sinusoidal waveform. As you may have already guessed, we are referring to the standard household voltage available from the AC outlets in our homes. The waveform is a pure 60 Hz sinusoid with an RMS value of 120 V. Since the waveform does not have a DC value, its amplitude can be found using equation 4.4.3 as Vp = 120 2 170 V Therefore, we can express the waveform as v(t) = 170 cos(260t + ) (4.5.1)

where is an arbitrary phase angle. In practice, the waveform is slightly distorted and its RMS value may dier slightly from 120 V. That is why, the appliances are usually designed to operate in a voltage range of 110 - 125 V. In dierent parts of the world, dierent standards are used. For instance, in Europe, 220 V/50 Hz is used in many countries as the standard household voltage.

4.5.1

Power Outlets in USA

The standard power outlet used in USA is shown in Figure 4.10 . As shown, it has three terminals referred to as Line, Neutral, and Ground. The AC voltage is supplied through the Line and Neutral terminals. The Ground terminal provides a return path for the current if the insulation between the electrical wires and the equipment breaks down.

Example 4.7. The standard 120V/60Hz AC voltage from a power outlet is applied to a 100
resistor. Find the amplitude of the current owing through the resistor. Solution: The RMS value of the current owing through the resistor can be found as, IRM S = VRM S 120 V = = 1.2 A R 100

109

Figure 4.10 : Standard power outlet used in USA.

Figure 4.11 : Sources of electricity in the U.S. in 2005.

Since the current is purely sinusoidal, its amplitude can be found from its RMS value using 4.4.3. Ip = IRM S 2 = 1.2 2 =

4.5.2

Power Generation and Distribution

Lets now consider how the standard AC voltage is generated and distributed to our homes and factories. Power plants are huge engineering marvels that convert one form of energy to electrical energy. They became feasible after realizing that AC power could be transported great

110

distances at very low cost with the help of transformers used at dierent points on the line to raise and lower the voltage levels according to the needs of the distribution system. The source of energy for the rst power plants was either coal or owing water. Lately, nuclear power plants have gained considerable popularity despite the fact that their longterm safety is still controversial in nature. Interest in other sources of energy including solar, thermoelectric and wind is also growing. Figure 4.11 shows dierent sources of electricity in the U.S. in 20051 . Figure 4.12 illustrates the main components of a power generation/distribution system. The voltage generated by the power plant is rst raised to a very high voltage within 69 - 700 kV by step-up transformers. The voltage level is determined by factors such as the amount of power to be delivered and the length of the transmission line. This voltage travels for miles and miles to distribution centers in residential areas, where step-down transformers reduce it down to smaller yet still fairly high distribution voltages. In US, typical levels used at this stage are 8.66, 15, 25, 34.5 kV determined by the power demands of an individual neighborhood and how the electricity will be distributed. This voltage is carried to the poles near the houses, where it is further reduced down to 120 V by step-down transformers on the poles before it is delivered to individual houses.

4.5.3

Your Electricity Bill

Your local electric power company charges you for the total energy consumed in your home or business over a period of time, to , typically a month. A modern electric meter such as the one shown in Figure 4.13 measures the instantaneous voltage and current rst to determine the instantaneous power consumption, p(t), and then integrates it real-time to nd the total energy consumption during the entire billing period . Mathematically speaking, the meter computes the area under p(t) over a period, to :
to

E=
0

p(t)dt

The above equation gives the energy consumption in Joules or watt-seconds. It is much more common to measure the energy consumption in kilowatt-hours or kWh. Realizing that 1 kW = 1000 W and we have 3600 seconds in an hour, the above equation can be written as E= 1 3.6 106
to

p(t)dt kW h
0

(4.5.2)

which yields the consumption in kWh and that is the number we have on our electricity bill.
Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, based on Net Generation by Energy Source by Type of Producer, (c. 2006), Washington: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Energy Information Administration
1

111

step-up transformer Power Plant 69 700 kV

step-down transformer

8.66 34.5 kV

120 V

Figure 4.12 : Main components of a power system.

112

Figure 4.13 : A residential power meter.

Example 4.8. Calculate the monthly cost of using a 2000 W heater for 1.5 hours everyday. Assume the power company charges 10 cents per kWh. Solution: First we need to realize that the power rating of any electrical load such as the heater in this example represents the average (i.e. real) power dissipation on the load. Since we already know the average value of p(t), we can multiply this average power by the duration of use to nd the energy consumption. This yields, E = 2000 W 1.5 h = 3 kW h Therefore, the total energy consumption in 30 days is 90 kW h. The cost of using the heater can then be calculated as cents 90 kW h = $9.00 Cost = 10 kW h

4.5.4

Real Power with a Non-Resistive Load

When a sinusoidal voltage, v(t) = Vp cos(2f t) is applied to an ordinary resistor, the current owing through the resistor can be determined using Ohms law. The resulting current waveform is another sinusoid, i(t) = Ip cos(2f t) where Ip = Vp /R. Since both waveforms

113

v(t)

t i(t) to

Figure 4.14 : If the load is not purely resistive, there exists a time delay between the voltage and current waveforms. have the same frequency and phase, they line up perfectly without a time delay between them. The above argument can not be true if the load is not a pure resistor. In such a case, either the current or the voltage waveform may fall behind, resulting in a phase dierence between the two waveforms as shown in Figure 4.14 . This turns out to be an important subject in power engineering because it creates a challenge for the power company in measuring the energy consumption of certain businesses that rely on heavy machinery equipped with electric motors and similar non-resistive loads. It is important to note that both waveforms in Figure 4.14 have the same period, therefore, the time delay between the two corresponds to a phase angle of to = 2 T radians. A good example for a non-resistive load is the capacitor. In example 4.4, we have shown that when a sinusoidal voltage is applied to a capacitor, the instantaneous power dissipated on the capacitor is also a sinusoid with zero DC oset. Since the standard power meter measures the area under p(t) and since the area under a pure sinusoid is zero, the electric company can not charge you anything for the energy you provide to a purely capacitive load. Electric motors behave in a manner very similar to capacitors. In the case of a capacitor, the phase dierence between the voltage and current waveforms is always /2 radians. More complex devices may combine elements of both resistive and capacitive loads. Consider for example the series combination of a capacitor and a resistor as shown in Figure 4.15 . This load is neither resistive nor capacitive, therefore, we should expect some arbitrary time delay between the two waveforms but it will never be equal to half the period as it is for a pure capacitor. Suppose this arbitrary time delay corresponds to a phase angle of radians

114

v(t) Load

Figure 4.15 : The equivalent circuit of a non-resistive load might be the series combination of a capacitor and a resistor.

between the two waveforms. Then, when the voltage, v(t) = Vp cos(2f t) is applied to such a non-resistive load, the resulting current will be of the form, i(t) = Ip cos(2f t + ) We note that the current waveform is again a perfect sinusoid with the same frequency as the voltage waveform. The instantaneous power dissipated on the load can now be written as p(t) = v(t)i(t) = Vp Ip cos(2f t) cos(2f t + ) where is the phase angle corresponding to the time delay, to between the two waveforms illustrated in Figure 4.14 . Using the trigonometric identity 1 cos A cos B = [cos(A + B) + cos(A B)] 2 we can simplify the instantaneous power expression as 1 1 p(t) = Vp Ip cos(4f t + ) + Vp Ip cos() 2 2 (4.5.3)

To nd the average i.e. the real power, we need to evaluate the average value of the expression above. We note that the rst term is a pure sinusoid, hence, its average value has to be zero. The second term looks like a sinusoid, but it actually is not because the argument of the cosine function, the phase angle, is a constant. Therefore, the entire second term is also a constant. Since the average value of a constant is the constant itself, the real power is given

115

by P = 1 T
0

1 p(t)dt = Vp Ip cos() 2

We can further simplify the above equation by using the RMS values of the voltage and the current waveforms instead of using their amplitudes. Since both voltage and current waveforms are sinusoidal, the RMS values of the waveforms are given by Vp VRM S = 2 Ip IRM S = 2 as derived in section 4.4.1. Using these relationships, we can simplify the real power found above as: P = VRM S IRM S cos() (4.5.4) which indicates that the real power has two components, the so-called apparent power given by S = VRM S IRM S (4.5.5) and the power factor, cos(). The unit of apparent power is volt-ampere or simply VA instead of watts. The apparent power, S is a useful quantity because it determines the peak power required, which determines the capacity required by energy companies.

Example 4.9. Calculate how much real and apparent power an electric fan will consume when
it is supplied from an ideal AC source of 120 V. Assume that the electric motor that drives the fan will draw a sinusoidal current with an amplitude of Ip = 5.0A and there exists a phase angle of 32 between the voltage and current waveforms. Solution: To calculate the power consumed by the fan, we rst need to determine the current it draws from the AC source. The peak value of the load current is 5 A. The RMS value of the current can be calculated as: Ip 5 IRM S = = 3.53 A 2 2 The apparent power can be calculated as S = VRM S IRM S = 120 3.53 = 423 V A The power factor is given by

116

cos() = cos(32o ) The real power can then be found as P = 423 V A cos(32) = 359 W

117

Vertical = 1 V/division Horizontal = 20 s/division R1

5V
R2

Figure P4.2

Figure P4.6 AC wall outlet. Find the power dissipated on the light bulb and the series resistor. P 4.5 Find the DC and RMS values of the following signals. (a) v(t) = (10V ) cos(2000t) (b) v(t) = (10V ) cos(2000t) (c) v(t) = (10V ) cos(106 t) (d) v(t) = (10V ) cos(106 t + /3) (e) v(t) = (2V ) + (10V ) cos(106 t) (f) v(t) = 2V P 4.6 The square wave shown in Figure P4.6 is applied to a 100 resistor. a) Find the DC value of the voltage applied to the resistor; b) Find the RMS value of the voltage applied to the resistor; c) Find the average (real) power dissipated on the resistor. P 4.7 Repeat the previous problem for the signal shown in Figure P4.7. P 4.8 A periodic signal, v(t) has been created by adding two sinusoidal waveforms, v1 (t) and v2 (t) at dierent frequencies such

Problems
P 4.1 A 9 V battery is connected to two resistors in series. Suppose the resistance values are 1 and 100 . Find the power dissipated on each resistor. P 4.2 In the circuit shown in Figure P4.2, the resistor, R1 is a non-linear resistor with an I-V characteristic of I = I0 (V /V0 1)3 with I0 = 100 mA and V0 = 200 mV . The resistor, R2 is an ordinary, linear resistor with a resistance of 1.5 k. a) Find the voltage drop across each resistor; b) Find the power dissipated across each resistor. P 4.3 The electric power dissipated by an incandescent light bulb is 100 W when it is powered by the standard, 120 V / 60 Hz AC voltage obtained from a wall outlet. a) Calculate the internal resistance of the light bulb; b) Calculate the power dissipated on the light bulb when the RMS value of the applied voltage is reduced to 90 V. P 4.4 A 50 resistor is connected in series with a 100 W light bulb. The series combination is then connected to a standard

118

Vertical = 0.1 V/division Horizontal = 1 ns/division 1.5 V 22 k

vs(t)
10 k

ix(t)

Figure P4.7 Figure P4.10 that v(t) = v1 (t) + v2 (t). Show that the RMS value of the resulting voltage wave(b) RMS value of the voltage across 2 2 form is given by Vrms = Vrms1 + Vrms2 . the load. P 4.9 A sinusoidal voltage waveform with an amplitude of 2 V and a DC value of 1 V P 4.12 The 120 V/60 Hz sinusoidal supply voltis applied to a 100 resistor. a) Find age is applied to a non-resistive load, the RMS value of the voltage applied to which results in a sinusoidal current with the resistor; b) Find the instantaneous an amplitude of 2 A. The voltage and power dissipated on the resistor; c) Find current signals have a phase dierence the average power dissipated on the reof /4 radians (45 ). Find the followsistor. ing: P 4.10 The AC voltage source in the circuit shown (a) RMS value of the voltage applied in Figure P4.10 generates a sinusoidal to the load. waveform with an RMS value of 2 V. a) Find the RMS value of the current ix (t); (b) RMS value of the load current. b) Find the average power dissipated on the 10 k resistor. (c) Power factor. P 4.11 A sinusoidal voltage obtained from a trans(d) Apparent power. former is half-wave rectied by a diode with a negligibly small turn-on voltage. (e) Real power. The RMS value of the voltage produced by the transformer is 12 V and the load P 4.13 An average power of 2 kW is delivered has a resistance of 250 . Find the folto a non-resistive load. The apparent lowing: power is 2.5 kVA. Calculate the power factor. P 4.14 The voltage signal v(t) = (4V ) cos(200t) (a) DC value of the voltage across the is applied to a non-resistive load, which load.

119

results in the current waveform, i(t) = (0.2A) cos(200t + /4). Find the following: (a) Power factor. (b) Apparent power. (c) Real power. P 4.15 An inductor is a two terminal passive circuit element, which consists of many turns of insulated electrical wire wound around a cylindrical core. The voltage, vL (t) across an inductor is given by vL (t) = L diL (t) dt

where L is the inductance in Henry (H) and iL (t) is the current through the inductor. Suppose we have an inductor with an inductance of 100 H. There is a sinusoidal current owing through the inductor given by iL (t) = (100mA) cos(1200t+ 6). Find the following: (a) Voltage across the inductor. (b) RMS values of inductor voltage and current. (c) Power factor. (d) Apparent power. (e) Real power. P 4.16 A standard, 60 W light bulb is powered by a commercial light dimmer. The dimmer knob is set to a position, which leaves the TRIAC open for pi/ 4 radians after each zero crossing. Find the power dissipated on the bulb.

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Chapter 5 Periodic Signals in Frequency Domain

The sinusoid is the most common periodic function that is encountered in electrical engineering, as well as everyday life. However, there are a great many more types of periodic functions and signals that surround us. Some of these are perfectly periodic and some are nearly periodic. The square wave you have seen in previous chapters is periodic. Many parts of speech, as we will see later in this chapter, are nearly periodic. In previous chapters, we have focused on the properties of periodic signals in time domain. In this chapter, we will learn how to describe and analyze periodic signals in the frequency domain. Everyday, we use the term frequency to describe aspects of common devices and physical phenomena. The term is used to denote a specied number of events that occur within a specic time, usually one second. The clock frequency of PCs are in excess of 500 Megahertz (MHz). This refers to the number of elementary operations (500 million) that can be performed in one second. Personal computer modems have data rates ranging from 19.6 Kilobits per second (Kbs) to 56 Kbs. High-speed lines promise rates in excess of 10 Mbs. This refers to the number of bits that can be transmitted between computers in one second. Broadcast radio stations use frequencies between 550 Kilohertz (kHz) and 1650 kHz for AM, and between 88 MHz and 108 MHz for FM. This refers to the number of oscillations of an electromagnetic wave in one second. We see these frequencies on the dials (or digital displays) and are more aware of them. We have heard the debate about selling the broadcast spectrum of satellite communication systems. Companies are buying the right to use specied frequencies for commercial purposes. In the audio range, we are aware that touch-tone phones use specic frequencies to encode the digits of the number that we dial. Actually, each digit requires a combination of two frequencies to make the system more robust. Stereo systems are often equipped with graphic equalizers and analyzers. The equalizers allow the listener to adjust the amplication of various frequency bands to suit the acoustics of the room or the preferences of the listener. The analyzer is a device qualitatively similar to the spectrum analyzer that will be used in this lab. It allows the listener to visually track the power of the output signal of the stereo 121

122

in various frequency bands.

5.1

Adding Sinusoids and Importance of Phase

In this chapter, we shall learn that virtually all periodic waveforms that are encountered in electrical engineering can be represented as the sum of sinusoids of dierent frequencies. In Chapter Periodic Signals in Time Domain, we learned that the phase dierence can be thought of as a time delay or lag. An example of two signals with a 90 degree (/2) phase dierence is shown in Figure 5.1 . The second signal has exactly the same waveform as the rst but appears to be delayed in time.

1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 0

cos(2p60t) cos(2p60t - p/2)

volts

10

20

30

40 50 time (ms)

60

70

80

Figure 5.1 : Two 60 Hz signals with 90 degree phase dierence. For most cases where we are concerned with only a single frequency, the phase is not of consequence. However, when dealing with multiple sinusoids, their relative phases can be very important. Previously, we have seen how the phase dierence between the voltage and current signals had an impact on the real power consumed by the load. As another example, consider the case of the sum of a 60 Hz signal and a 180 Hz signal of dierent magnitudes and dierent phase angles v(t) = cos(260t + 1 ) + 0.5 cos(2180t + 2 ) (5.1.1)

The two component signals and their sum are shown in Figure 5.2 . For this example 1 = 2 = 0. To illustrate the eect of a relative phase dierence, we let 1 = 0 and 2 = 180 and present the results in Figure 5.3 . Since time is not an absolute quantity, it is the relative phase that is always of interest. Not only does the waveform appear very dierent, the magnitudes of the two summations are signicantly dierent.

123

60 Hz signal volts 1 0 -1 10 1 0 -1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 20 30 40 50 180 Hz signal 60 70 80

volts

signal obtained by adding the above sinusoids volts 1 0 -1 10 20 30 40 50 time (ms) 60 70 80

Figure 5.2 : Sum of two sinusoids with zero relative phase.

5.2

Magnitude Spectrum and Phase Spectrum

The examples of Figure 5.2 and Figure 5.3 look similar to what would be seen on an oscilloscope. In this section, we shall learn that we can also represent such signals in frequency domain. Any sinusoid is fully dened by its magnitude and phase, that is, the value of signal, v(t) = V cos(2f t + ) can be determined at any time by knowing its f and . The sum of two sinusoids v(t) = V1 cos(2f1 t + 1 ) + V2 cos(2f2 t + 2 ) requires two frequencies and two phases for complete denition. If the magnitude at the frequency f is denoted V (f ) and the phase is denoted (f ), the sum of two sinusoids in Figure 5.3 can be expressed in the frequency domain as if f = 60 1 0.5 if f = 180 V (f ) = (5.2.1) 0 else

124

60 Hz signal volts 1 0 -1 10 1 0 -1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 signal obtained by adding the above sinusoids volts 1 0 -1 10 20 30 40 50 time (ms) 60 70 80 20 30 40 50 180 Hz signal 60 70 80

Figure 5.3 : Sum of sinusoids with 180 degree relative phase. 1 2 (f ) = 0 if f = 60 if f = 180 else

volts

(5.2.2)

This functional representation may appear cumbersome. Its purpose is to get you to think of the magnitude and phase as functions of frequency, not as isolated constants. A visualization of the frequency representation requires a graph of both the magnitude and phase components. For the summation signal of Figure 5.3 , the graphs are shown in Figure 5.4 , for 1 = 0 and 2 = 180. Complicated periodic signals are composed of the sums of a large, sometimes innite, number of sinusoids. Each requires two real numbers to dene the value. To express this representation, we will generalize the two functions above. The function, V (f ) is called the magnitude spectrum and (f ) is called the phase spectrum. Note that in the gures, the frequency axis is shown only to 1 kHz. Since the functions are zero beyond this frequency, this is sucient. In general, you must choose a limited frequency range to display.

Example 5.1. Sketch the magnitude spectrum of the voltage signal,

v(t) = (5V ) + (10V ) cos(21000t + 3/4).

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Amplitude ( V )

1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 100 200 200 300 400 500 600 700 Frequency (Hz) 800 900 1000 Magnitude in Frequency Domain

Phase ( degrees )

100 0 -100 Phase in Frequency Domain -200 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 Frequency (Hz) 800 900 1000

Figure 5.4 : Frequency domain representation of the summation signal shown in Figure 5.3 : a) magnitude spectrum and b) phase spectrum.

Solution: This voltage signal has two terms. The rst term is the constant, DC term. In frequency domain, we like to think of the signals DC component as another sinusoid with zero frequency. This of course relies on the fact that cos(0) = 1 . The second term in v(t) is an ordinary sinusoid with an amplitude of 10 V. Thus, the magnitude spectrum consists of two components at f = 0 and f = 1000Hz with magnitudes of 5 and 10 V respectively. The resulting magnitude spectrum is shown in Figure 5.5 . It is important to note that the individual phases of the signal components have no

Amplitude ( V )

10

500

1000 1500 f requency (Hz)

2000

Figure 5.5 : Magnitude Spectrum

126

eect on the magnitude spectrum.

In some applications, we are less concerned with the relative phase. The most common example is audio analysis. The ear does not hear relative phases well. On a monophonic speaker, the two summation signals of Figure 5.2 and Figure 5.3 would sound indistinguishable. However, we do use relative phase in our ears (stereo receivers) to locate the source of a sound.

5.3

Power Spectrum

In many cases, we are interested in the power of a signal as a function of frequency. In communications systems, it is the power at various frequencies that is measured to determine if broadcasters are in compliance, that is, their electromagnetic transmission stays within their allocated frequency band. It is also the power as a function of frequency that is used to detect radio and cellular communications signals. This is one way that the cellular system knows when to change the user from one cell (local area) to another.

5.3.1

Signal Power

In the previous chapter, we have learned that if a time-varying signal is applied to a resistor, R, the instantaneous power dissipated on the resistor is given by v 2 (t) R The average value of p(t) is the real power, P, which can be expressed as p(t) = v(t)i(t) = P = 1 T
T

p(t)dt =
0

2 VRM S R

We dene the Signal Power as the real power dissipated on a resistance of 1 . Hence, the above equation reduces to
2 VRM S 2 (5.3.1) = VRM S 1 given in Watt. In creating the magnitude spectrum of a periodic signal, we were interested in the amplitudes of sinusoids at dierent frequencies. In this section, we are interested in nding the signal power of the individual sinusoids. In the previous chapter, we have seen that the RMS voltage of the sinusoid, Vo cos(2f t + ) is given by

P =

Vo VRM S = 2

(5.3.2)

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From equations 5.3.1 and 5.3.2, the signal power of a sinusoid can be found as Vo2 (5.3.3) 2 Therefore, we can construct the power spectrum of a signal using equation 5.3.1 to compute the signal power at each frequency. P =

Example 5.2. Sketch the power spectrum of the signal, v(t) = (5V ) + (10V ) cos(21000t + 3/4)
whose magnitude spectrum was found in Example 5.1 Solution: To compute the power spectrum, we need to calculate the signal power at each frequency. This yields, if f = 0Hz 25 50 if f = 1000Hz P (f ) = 0 else and the corresponding power spectrum is shown in Figure 5.6 . It is important to note that
50
Watt

25 0 0 500 1000 f requency (Hz) 1500 2000

Figure 5.6 : Power Spectrum

2 the signal power in the DC term is calculated as VDC whereas the signal power at 1000 Hz is 2 2 /2 according to Eq. 5.3.1 Vrms = Vo

5.3.2

Power Spectrum in Decibels

When plotting the power spectra of periodic signals it is generally preferred to use a logarithmic axis for the signal power. This is done by expressing the signal power in decibel-watts or dBW, which is nothing more than the logarithm of the signal power multiplied by a factor of ten. Therefore, conversion of signal power from W to dBW can be done using the formula PdBW = 10 log P (5.3.4)

128

where P is the power in Watts. While this is a simple expression that we can accept and remember, it is important to understand its origins. This is one of those basic concepts, which we hope you will not forget as long as you work as an engineer. Strictly speaking, the unit decibel (dB) is used to compare the signal intensity of two dierent signals. For instance, dB can be used to describe the dierence between the music transmitted by a radio station and the background noise. It is dened as, P2 (5.3.5) P1 where P1 and P2 are the signal powers of the two signals compared. That is, we rst evaluate the logarithm of the power ratio and multiply the result by a factor of ten. For example, suppose you are at a rock concert running an experiment on the impact of high sound levels on human hearing. You measure the sound level when the band is playing and determine the average power level to be roughly equal to 1000 W. When the music stops, you measure the background noise level as 10 W. To express the dierence between the music and noise levels in dB, we write, dB = 10 log dB = 10 log Pmusic 1000 = 10 log = 20dB Pnoise 10

We explain our measurement by stating that there is a dierence of 20 dB between the music and noise levels. Expanding the logarithm in equation 5.3.5 yields the following expression dB = 10 log P2 10 log P1 (5.3.6)

where 10 log P1 and 10 log P2 give us the signal power in dBW for the signals 1 and 2 respectively. Therefore, dB is the dierence between the two signal powers measured in dBW. Now lets go back to the origin of dBW and explain how it relates to dB. The inevitable question is the following: If dB needs two quantities to compare, how can we use the concept to refer to the power of a specic signal? The honest answer is that we cheat and dene the signal power in dBW as Psignal (5.3.7) 1W where we have taken the signal power, Psignal as our P2 and assigned 1 W to P1 . By doing so, we are comparing our signal power to a reference of 1 W . This happens to be a convenient reference since 1 W corresponds to 0 dBW according to equation 5.3.4. In a sense, when we refer to the signal power in dBW, we are implicitly stating that the signal power is so much dB above the reference level of 0 dBW. PdBW = 10 log

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Source of Sound Threshold of Hearing (TOH) Rustling Leaves Whispering Normal conversation Busy Street Trac Vacuum Cleaner Large Orchestra Walkman at Maximum Level Front Rows of Rock Concert Threshold of Pain Military Jet Takeo Instant Perforation of Eardrum

dBW (approximate) 0 10 20 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 140 160

Table 5.1: Acoustic Loudness in Decibels Another very popular unit used in radio communications is dBm, which uses 1 mW as the reference power. Therefore, the unit dBm is given by P (5.3.8) 1 mW The most common use of the decibel scale is in audio signal processing where scales on stereo systems are calibrated in dB. This is meaningful since the ear can be modeled as a logarithmic detector. In other words, we hear in dB. A sound that is twice as powerful as another does not seem to us to be twice as loud. It seems only slightly louder. In the dB scale, we would compute the dierence as PdBm = 10 log dB = 10 log P2 2P1 = 10 log = 10 log(2) 3 dB P1 P1

Therefore, increasing the signal power by a factor of two, increases the apparent sound by only 3 dB. For a sound to seem twice as loud, the magnitude of the signal must increase by a factor of ten. This implies a factor of 100 in power, or two orders of magnitude (20 dB). There are sound theoretical reasons for this relationship. In fact, Alexander Graham Bell, of telephone fame and for whom the decibel is named, helped work out this theory. Examples of loudness are given in Table 5.1.

Example 5.3. Sketch the power spectrum of the signal in Examples 5.1 and 5.2 using the decibel

130

scale. Solution: To solve the problem, we need to calculate the power at each frequency in decibels using Eq. 5.3.4. This yields, if f = 0Hz 10 log(25) = 13.98dB 10 log(50) = 16.99dB if f = 1000Hz PdB = 0 else and the corresponding power spectrum is shown in Figure 5.7 .
Power ( dBW )

20 10 0 0 500 1000 f requency (Hz) 1500 2000

Figure 5.7 : Power Spectrum in dB

Example 5.4. What is the amplitude in volts of a sinusoid represented by a 0 dB spike in a

power spectrum graph? Solution: According to Eq. 5.3.4, the power in dB is given by PdBW = 10 log(P ) Solving the above equation for the signal power we obtain, P = 10PdBW /10 Substituting 0 dBW for signal power yields, P = 1 W . The signal power at any frequency is given by Vp2 P = 2 which yields Vp = 2 V for the amplitude of the sinusoid.

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5.4

Periodic Signals in Frequency Domain

The real power of frequency domain analysis lies in the fact that any periodic signal1 can be represented by the sum of sinusoids. The mathematical term for this representation is the Fourier Series2 . If v(t) is any periodic signal with period T, it can be expressed as an innite sum of sinusoids according to

v(t) =
n=0

Vn cos [2fn t + n ]

(5.4.1)

where Vn is the magnitude of the sinusoid at frequency, fn = nfo Hz and n is the corresponding phase3 . According to Fourier Series, the only possible frequency components lie at multiples of the fundamental frequency, fo . The fundamental frequency is the frequency associated with the smallest period of a periodic signal. We have to say smallest since a periodic signal with a period of T is also periodic with a period of 2T, 3T, etc. In Eq. 5.4.1, the fundamental frequency is fo = 1/T . Frequencies that are multiples of the fundamental frequency are called harmonics. The fundamental tone of a periodic signal is also the rst harmonic obtained with n = 1. It is also important to note that the fundamental frequency, fo of a periodic signal is the frequency that we would measure from a display of the signal in time domain. As such, the fundamental sets the main oscillations and the rest of the harmonics provide the delicate features of the signal. For a powerful demonstration of Eq. 5.4.1, consider the square wave shown in Figure 5.8 a, which has a frequency of 100 Hz and a duty cycle of 50%. The spectrum of this signal is shown in Figure 5.8 b. From the graph, we see that the only nonzero frequency components exist at the odd multiples of 100 Hz (i.e., 100, 300, 500 etc.). This implies that Vk = 0 for k = 2,4,6 etc. It requires an innite number of harmonics in order to represent a square wave.The graph of the spectrum (or spectrum analyzer) shows only a nite number of these terms. It is interesting and instructive to see the eect of partial summations. The rst term in the summation corresponds to k = 0 . This term represents the average or the DC value of the signal with f = 0Hz . The DC value of the square wave shown in Figure 5.8 a is 0.5 V. The second term is the fundamental, which corresponds to k = 1 and has the frequency of 100 Hz. For k = 3 and k = 5 we obtain the rst two harmonics at 300 and 500 Hz respectively.
There are some mathematical constraints on this statement but it holds true for any realizable signal that you will encounter. 2 Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) travelled with Napoleon on several occasions, an early example of military funded research. 3 The theory on the computation of the magnitude and phase is covered in a junior level course on signals and systems. It is also noted that periodic signals can be represented in the frequency domain by continuous functions of frequency. These functions are obtained using the Fourier transform.
1

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Pulse train with 50% duty cycle 1.5 1.0 0.5 0 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time (ms) 70 80 90 Voltage ( V )

0 Power ( dBW ) -20 -40 -60 -80

Power Spectrum of the above Pulse train

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Frequency (Hz)

Figure 5.8 : Pulse train with 50% duty cycle and its power spectrum

Let us begin a series of graphs of successive summations with this constant function. The rst term is shown in the top graph of Figure 5.9 . The next graph shows the result of summing the DC term and the fundamental frequency term ( k = 0 and k = 1). The result is v0 (t) + v1 (t) = 0.5V + V1 cos(2100t + 1 ) which is nothing but a cosine with a DC value. The next graphs show the eect of summing the next two terms. These signals can be written as v0 + v1 + v2 = 0.5V + V1 cos(2100t + 1 ) + V2 cos(2300t + 2 ) and v0 + v1 + v2 + v3 = 0.5V + V1 cos(2100t + 1 ) + V2 cos(2300t + 2 ) + V3 cos(2500t + 3 ) From this, it is apparent that the result of adding more terms is an increasingly better approximation to the pulse train.

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DC term 1 0 -1 10 1 0 -1 10 1 0 -1 10 1 0 -1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time (ms) 70 80 90 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 DC term, 1st, 2nd and 3rd harmonics volts volts 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 DC term, 1st and 2nd harmonics volts 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 DC term and 1st harmonic (fundamental) volts

Figure 5.9 : Just like any other periodic signal, a pulse train can be represented by a Fourier series, which is an innite sum of sinusoids. As shown, a reasonably good approximation to a square wave can be obtained by a DC term and only three frequency components (sinusoids).

5.5

Noise in the Frequency Domain

Noise is a major factor in communication systems and signal processing applications. One of the reasons digital systems are favored is their ability to continue functioning over noisy channels. An important characteristic of noise is its power spectrum. White noise is called white because, like white light, it has roughly equal power at all frequencies (or wavelengths). A sample of white noise and its spectrum are shown in Figure 5.10 . As expected the spectrum is relatively at. Since the noise is random, it is only the average or expected value that is actually at. The power of a sample of a random process will show random variations. The noise is added to the square wave signal and shown in Figure 5.11 . The quantity of interest in a noisy system is not the magnitude of the noise power but its relation to the signal power. This is formally quantied by the signal-to-noise ratio or SNR, which is dened by SN R = Ps Pn (5.5.1)

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2 Voltage ( V ) 1 0 -1 -2 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Time (ms) 3.5 4 4.5

0 Power ( dBW ) -20 -40 -60 -80 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Frequency (kHz) 16 18 20

Figure 5.10 : White noise and its power spectrum. where Ps is the average power of the signal and Pn is the average power of the noise. Both are computed in an analogous way to Eq. 5.3.3, for example, 1 Ps = T The SNR in decibels is given by SN RdB = 10 log10 Ps Pn (5.5.3)
T /2 T /2

s2 (t)dt

(5.5.2)

The signal-to-noise ratio for the noisy signal in Figure 5.11 is 20 dB. This means that the ratio of the signal power to noise power is 100. For this case, the square wave signal is still easy to see. The edges of the pulses are still readily identied. Let us consider a noisier communication channel. The noise has been increased to yield an SNR of 0 dB for the signal in Figure 5.12 . This means that the noise is just as powerful as the signal. It is dicult to determine the pulses in the time domain graph. Certainly, the edges cannot be determined with any accuracy. However, because of the dierent distribution of power in the frequency domain, the signal is easily detected, that is, the peaks associated with the square wave spectrum are easily identied. This means that the square wave can be recovered by appropriate processing. Exactly what processing is appropriate is a subject of

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2 Voltage ( V ) 1 0 -1 -2 0 0 Power ( dBW ) -20 -40 -60 -80 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Frequency (kHz) 16 18 20 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Time (ms) 3.5 4 4.5

Figure 5.11 : a) Signal plus white noise with a signal-to-noise ratio of 20 dB, b)Power spectrum of the signal. more advanced courses in communications.

Example 5.5. The AM section of a radio receiver has a Signal-to-Noise Ratio of 40 dB. If the
volume level of the receiver is set to produce a music power of 100 W, calculate the noise power. Solution: According to Eq. 5.5.3, the signal-to-noise ratio is given by SN RdB = 10 log10 Solving for Pn , we obtain Pn = Ps .10SN R/10 = 100W 1040/10 = 0.01W = 10mW Ps Pn

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2 Voltage ( V ) 1 0 -1 -2 0.5 0 Power ( dBW ) -20 -40 -60 -80 2 4 6 8 10 12 Frequency (kHz) 14 16 18 20 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Time (ms) 3.5 4 4.5

Figure 5.12 : a) Signal plus white noise with a signal-to-noise ratio of 0 dB, b) Power spectrum of the signal.

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5.6

Audio Signals in the Frequency Domain

As audio signals are one of the most common signals encountered, most students are familiar with many of their characteristics. The graphic spectrum analyzers and equalizers have a range between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. From this, one may safely assume that the limits on hearing are in this range. Most humans produce little audio (voice) power above 3 kHz. This permits the telephone system to use a much smaller frequency range than CD quality stereo. Let us consider an audio signal. Figure 5.13 shows a segment of the long oh sound in the word oak.
0.2 Voltage ( V ) 0.1 0 -0.1 -0.2 5 0 Power ( dBW ) -20 -40 -60 -80 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 Frequency (kHz) 3000 3500 4000 10 15 20 25 Time (ms) 30 35

Figure 5.13 : a) human voice: long O sound in the word oak, b) power spectrum of the long O sound. This signal is not quite periodic but it is close enough for practical purposes. From the graph, the period is seen to be about 4 ms, which implies the fundamental frequency should be about 250 Hz. This agrees with the frequency peaks of the power spectrum graph. If you were to consider encoding4 the long oh signal, you could reproduce a recognizable oh sound with very few frequencies. There are only about ve or six major peaks. Note how the signal bears a qualitative resemblance to the sum of two sinusoids of Figures 5.2 and
Data is encoded by changing its representation. Many times the data is also compressed by reducing the number of symbols in the representation.
4

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5.3 . The sound of such a coded voice sounds mechanical to us. It is the deviations from perfect periodicity that give the human voice its distinctive quality. For comparison, Figure 5.14 shows the same O sound from a dierent speaker.
0.4 Voltage ( V ) 0.2 0 -0.2 -0.4 0 5 10 15 20 Time (ms) 25 30 35

Figure 5.14 : Human voice: long O sound from a dierent speaker We can also see that a frequency range of 4 kHz is quite adequate to represent this voiced sound. The power in the 3-4 kHz range is down over 40 dB from the peak power of the signal. With typical telephone line signal-to-noise ratios, the signal power in this range would be lost in the noise of the system. The laboratory will give you some practice at generating signals and getting a feel for the relative power in the frequency domain. While the voice has a limited frequency range, musical instruments can generate much higher frequencies. The characteristic sound of most instruments is a combinations of a few distinct lower frequency tones and a large number of their harmonics. To adequately display these spectra, we must extend the frequency axis of the graph to 20 kHz. A single note from a recorder (a wooden ute commonly used in baroque music) is shown in the time and frequency domain in Figure 5.15 . Signicant harmonics are evident to at least 10 kHz. By signicant, we mean that these harmonics are obviously identied above the noise level. An interesting comparison is done by plucking a single string of an acoustic guitar. The spectrum is shown in Figure 5.16 . Note that there are signicant harmonics almost out to 20 kHz. One might expect that the single string would produce only harmonics of a single fundamental frequency. However, we note several lower harmonics, which are critical in giving the guitar its characteristic sound. It is important to select the frequency range and resolution that is appropriate for the problem. In the laboratory, we will learn how to do this on the spectrum analyzer. As usual, there are engineering trade-os to consider. Higher resolution and larger frequency ranges require more processing power and higher processing speeds, which, in turn, means higher cost. Furthermore, frequency resolution is dependent on the number of samples used to compute the spectrum and the sampling frequency. A higher sampling frequency implies

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0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 -0.05 -0.10 -0.15 -0.20 0 10 0 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50 -60

Voltage ( V )

10 15 Time (ms)

20

25

Power ( dBW )

10 Frequency (kHz)

15

20

Figure 5.15 : a) single note from a wooden recorder, b) power spectrum of the signal a wider total range. In fact, the range is always one half of the sampling frequency 5 . The resolution of the spectrum is proportional to the reciprocal of the number of samples. Thus, high resolution in the frequency domain implies a large number of samples6 .

5 6

This will be explained in a junior level signal and systems course. In fact, the resolution is proportional to f =sampling rate/number of samples.

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0.4 Voltage ( V ) 0.2 0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.6 0 5 10 15 Time (ms) 20 25

Power ( dBW )

0 -20 -40 -60 0 5 10 Frequency (kHz) 15 20

Figure 5.16 : a) single note from an acoustic guitar, b) power spectrum of the signal.

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Problems
P 5.1 Sketch the magnitude and phase spectra of the following waveforms:
(a) v(t) = 2 + 3 cos(250t) (b) v(t) = 2 3 cos(250t) (c) v(t) = 2 + 3 cos(250t + /4) (d) v(t) = 2 3 cos(250t + /4) (e) v(t) = 2 3 cos(250t + /4)

P 5.5 Given the signal,

3

v(t) =
n=1

12 cos(21000nt) V n

(a) Find the signal power of v(t). (b) Find the RMS value of v(t). (c) The same signal is applied to a 1 k resistor. Find the average power dissipated on the resistor. P 5.6 An AM radio station is broadcasting at an average signal power of 1000 W. If signal-to-noise ratio of the transmission system is 60 dB, nd the signal power of the background noise.

P 5.2 Sketch the power spectra of the waveforms given in the previous problem. Use Watts for the vertical axis. P 5.3 Sketch the power spectra of the waveforms given in the previous problem. Use dbW for the vertical axis. P 5.4 Fourier series coecients of the voltage waveform,

v(t) =
n=1

An cos(250nt + n )

v(t) are given by An = 120n2 V and n = n/8. (a) If we were to apply this signal to a DC voltmeter, what would be the reading on the voltmeter? (b) Find the signal power of the rst, second and third harmonics in dBW and sketch the power spectrum. (c) Use the rst ve harmonics of the signal to create an approximate sketch of the signal in the time domain. Suggestion: Create this plot on your computer.

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Chapter 6 Signal Amplication

Transducers such as microphones and electric guitar pick-ups produce tiny electrical signals in the millivolt range. Compact disc and tape players might produce larger signals but they too are too small for the audio speakers to produce strong sound waves that can ll concert halls. We use special electronic circuits called ampliers that increase the intensity of electrical signals and we refer to this process as signal amplication. Ampliers constitute the most important class of electronic circuits. Not only they are widely used in audio and video systems but they are also fundamental to all electronic circuits, analog and digital combined. For this reason, a standard introductory course on electronic circuits typically focuses just on designing simple amplier circuits using transistors. In this chapter, we shall focus on amplication as a fundamental analog signal processing technique and review the basic properties of ampliers.

6.1

Voltage Gain

The voltage gain, Av of an amplier can be loosely dened as the ratio between the output and input voltages and it can be expressed as Vout (6.1.1) Vin This denition assumes that the output signal is a larger replica of the input signal without any distortion. In the laboratory, we can use this simple denition to measure the voltage gain of an amplier. To do this, we apply a sinusoidal test signal to the amplier, measure the amplitudes or the peak-to-peak values of the input and output waveforms and determine the voltage gain as the ratio of the two numbers. This procedure assumes that the output signal is a larger replica of the input signal without any obvious distortion when the amplier output Av = 143

144

is viewed in time domain. In other words, if the input is a sinusoid, the output should be a sinusoid as well. The following example demonstrates this measurement procedure.

Example 6.1. A sinusoidal test signal is applied to an audio amplier. The input and output
waveforms are measured by an oscilloscope and the the resulting display is shown in Figure 6.1 . Determine the voltage gain of the amplier. Solution: First, we realize that the output signal displayed on Channel 2 is indeed an amplied sinusoid without any obvious distortion. Interestingly however, it is inverted relative to the input signal,that is, when the input is positive, the output is negative. We can also look at signal inversion as a time delay between the input and output signals. The time delay is exactly equal to half the period, which corresponds to a phase dierence of radians. Signal inversion is the norm for basic amplier stages and typically, we have to do extra work to avoid it. Fortunately, for many applications including audio, it does not matter if the signal is inverted. In this problem, it does not interfere with our gain measurement. The important thing is that the output is a larger sinusoid, whether it is inverted or not. We note that the two oscilloscope channels are using dierent vertical scales: 50 mV/division for Channel 1 and 1 V/division for Channel 2. Using these scales, we can measure the peak-to-peak values of the input and output waveforms as 100 mV and 2.0 V respectively. Then, the voltage gain is the ratio of the two numbers, i.e. 2.0/0.1 = 20.

6.2

Transfer Characteristic of an Amplier

According to equation 6.1.1, the amplier output voltage is given by Vout = Av Vin which is a straight line with a slope, Av as shown in Figure 6.2 . We refer to this plot as the transfer characteristic of the amplier. If the characteristic is just a straight line as in Figure 6.2 , we use the adjectives ideal or linear to describe the amplier behavior. The transfer characteristic can be very helpful in visualizing the amplication process. Figure 6.3 illustrates a graphical method for obtaining the amplier output waveform using the transfer characteristic. Using this method, the output signal can be constructed for any input signal by going through the characteristic point by point. In this example, we note that the output signal is indeed a larger replica of the input signal.

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Figure 6.1 : Input and output waveforms of an amplier displayed by an oscilloscope. The output signal is inverted during amplication. For sinusoidal signals, inversion is equivalent to a phase angle of radians.

Vout

Av = Slope Vin

Figure 6.2 : Transfer characteristic of an ideal amplier. The slope of the straight line is equal to the voltage gain, Av . A linear amplier such as this one applies the same voltage gain to the input signal regardless of the input voltage level.

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Obviously, for a perfectly linear characteristic the graphical method described in Figure 6.3 may seem quite unnecessary. Lets just say that we will soon be discussing ampliers with nonlinear features, hopefully then, you will appreciate the usefulness of the transfer characteristic concept and the graphical method presented in this section.

6.3

Deviations from the Ideal Characteristic

Suppose we apply a larger test signal to the amplier of Figure 6.1 , say a sinusoid with an amplitude of 300 mV. Will the amplier still produce an output signal 20 times larger than the input signal? You are probably thinking, why wouldnt it? After all, the voltage gain of an amplier should have nothing to do with the intensity of the input signal. Small or large, an amplier has to perform the same algebraic operation, that is, multiply the input signal by the same voltage gain. Now suppose we use an even larger input signal, this time, a sinusoid with an amplitude of 50 V. Can the output signal have an amplitude of 20 50 = 1000 V? Probably not! At this point, we should begin feeling a bit suspicious about the simple Av equation and the ideal transfer characteristic we have been using. After all, if this were true, our energy problem could be solved rather easily. A few batteries and an amplier would be sucient to produce thousands of volts!

6.3.1

Clipping Distortion

An amplier is an electronic circuit, which requires an external energy source, a DC power supply or a battery, to function. This external source determines the maximum voltage that can be measured anywhere on the circuit, including the amplier output terminals. To understand this concept, you can think of any circuit constructed using resistors and a DC battery. Can you measure a voltage greater than the battery voltage anywhere in the circuit? Your answer should be a rm no. An amplier is not much dierent than the resistive circuits we have seen before. Therefore, if the output signal of an amplier attempts to exceed the limit set by the ampliers energy source, the DC battery voltage, it simply cant - it is clipped. This means that if the output signal is outside a certain voltage range, the amplier does not function properly and its behavior can not be described by equation 6.1.1. Therefore, the transfer characteristic shown in Figure 6.2 must be improved to take into account this limitation imposed by the power supply. The resulting transfer characteristic is shown in Figure 6.4 . For this characteristic, we have assumed that the amplier is powered by two voltage sources, one producing a positive and the other producing a negative supply voltage relative to the ground. We can see that as long as the input signal is within the limits set by the power supply, the transfer characteristic shown in Figure 6.4 is perfectly linear, hence, the voltage gain of the amplier can still be determined from the slope of the straight line. On the other hand, if the input signal is larger than Vin,max the output voltage is independent of the

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Vout

vout(t)

Vin

vin(t)

Figure 6.3 : A graphical method can be used to construct the output signal using the transfer characteristic of the amplier. In this example, an arbitrary input signal is applied to an amplier with a perfectly linear characteristic.

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Vout + Vs Av = Slope -Vin, max - Vs Vin, max Vin

Figure 6.4 : The maximum output voltage range of a practical amplier is determined by the positive and negative power supply voltages. The transfer characteristic shown is perfectly linear between the two limits. input signal and it is equal to the positive supply voltage. Similarly, if the input goes below Vin,max , then the output voltage is equal to the negative supply voltage. The slope of the characteristic in the saturated regions is zero indicative of no amplication. Figure 6.5 illustrates how the output signal is distorted when it attempts to go beyond the linear range of the amplier. The transfer characteristic used in this example belongs to an amplier powered by a +/ 15V dual power supply. From the slope of the characteristic, we can determine the voltage gain as 15/0.1 = 150. If the input signal is within 100mV < Vin < +100mV , the output signal is an amplied replica of the input signal. Outside the linear range, the peaks of the signal are clipped. An oscilloscope display demonstrating clipping of a sinusoidal input signal is shown in Figure 6.6 . The input signal is displayed on Channel 1. We can see that the output signal is clipped both on top and bottom, however, it is interesting to note that clipping on top of the signal does not result in a xed voltage level as in Figure 6.5 . We really can not explain this behavior without seeing the actual transfer characteristic of the amplier. As we shall see in the next section, the transfer characteristic may be quite nonlinear between the two power supply limits, which may lead to the clipping shown in Figure 6.6 . Clipping is a common cause of distortion that plagues practical ampliers, however, there is at least one application we are aware of in which clipping is put into good use. Electric guitar players use various signal conditioning techniques to distort the natural sound of the guitar. One of these techniques is hard clipping, which was made popular by the heavy metal bands of the early eighties. To create this type of distortion, all we need to do is boost the voltage gain such that the output signal is pushed outside the linear range of the amplier.

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Vout

vout(t)

clipping

+ 15 V

+ 100 mV - 100 mV Vin

- 15V

vin(t)
Peaks outside the linear range

Figure 6.5 : When the input signal goes beyond the linear region of the amplier, the output signal is clipped resulting in clipping distortion. The graphical method shown can be used to predict the output signal.

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Figure 6.6 : Oscilloscope display showing the input and output waveforms of an amplier. The output signal displayed on channel 2 is clipped.

Example 6.2. An audio amplier with a voltage gain of 200 is powered by a +/ 12 V dual
power supply. Find the peak-to-peak value of the largest input signal the amplier can process without causing the output signal to be clipped? Solution: The peak-to-peak value of the largest output signal the amplier can produce is 24 V equal to the dierence between the positive and negative power supply voltages. The peak-to-peak value of the input signal can be found by dividing this voltage by the voltage gain, Av : Vin, pp = Vout, pp 24 V = = 0.12 V Av 200

6.3.2

Nonlinear Distortion

Another deviation from equation 6.1.1 arises from the fact that ampliers use transistors with highly non-linear current - voltage characteristics. We must emphasize the fact that transistors are the essential semiconductor devices that make the amplication happen. This

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Vout + Vs

Vin

- Vs Almost linear range of the amplifier

Figure 6.7 : A non-linear transfer characteristic. There is a small section of the transfer characteristic where some linearity is achieved. To minimize distortion, only a tiny signal, which can stay within this linear range should be allowed. non-linear transistor behavior shows up in the transfer characteristics of virtually all ampliers. Consequently, the voltage gain of a realistic amplier varies with the input voltage level, which becomes another major source of distortion. An example characteristic is shown in Figure 6.7 . We note that the slope of the characteristic is dierent at dierent input voltage levels, hence, we need a mathematically more rigorous denition to describe the voltage gain. Our improved expression is given below: Av = dvout (t) dvin (t) (6.3.1)

This equation looks at the small variations in the output signal, dvout that result in response to small variations, dvin in the input signal. Because it is a derivative, we can determine the voltage gain around a specic voltage level. Clearly, an amplier with such a nonlinear characteristic will also suer from clipping distortion, however, the distortion caused by the non-linearity may be just as bad when you listen to the music produced by such an amplier. We note that the characteristic has a tiny almost linear region in the middle. To minimize distortion, the input signal should be kept within the bounds of this region. Extending the range of this almost linear region is a challenging task for circuit designers. Now, lets examine Figure 6.8 , which shows the impact of a non-linear transfer characteristic on the output signal. Also shown for comparison is the output signal from an ideal amplier for the same input signal. We note that the signal is not really clipped but it

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does not quite have the same general shape as the signal produced by the ideal amplier. In other words, it is distorted in a non-linear fashion. Therefore, unlike in the case of hard clipping, the output signal still resembles the input signal, yet it is a dierent signal and it will denitely sound distorted.

6.3.3

Total Harmonic Distortion

Total harmonic distortion is not a dierent type of distortion, rather it is a generally accepted way of quantifying the distortion caused by clipping or the nonlinear transfer characteristic of an amplier. This discussion requires examining the impact of distortion in the frequency domain. Suppose a sinusoidal test signal of amplitude Vp and frequency fo is applied to the input port of an amplier. Since it is a pure sinusoid, the test signal is represented by a single peak at f = fo in the frequency domain. Let us now suppose that the amplier produces a slightly distorted output signal due to clipping or due to a nonlinearity in its transfer characteristic. Whatever the cause of the distortion might be, the output signal will no longer be a pure sinusoid, instead it will still be a periodic signal consisting of innitely many sinusoids. Note however that the distorted output signal is still organically tied to the input signal - after all, it is just a distorted version of the same signal. As such, the frequency of the output signal will be fo just like the input signal. We shall use this opportunity to once again stress the fact that the fundamental frequency of the distorted output signal is the frequency of the signal that we would measure in time domain from an oscilloscope screen. Therefore, the distorted output signal can be expressed as a Fourier series given by,

vout (t) =
n=1

Vn cos(2nfo + n )

(6.3.2)

The power spectrum of the above signal will consist of innitely many peaks occurring at multiples of fo . The signal power of the nth harmonic, Pn will then be Pn = V n 2
2

2 Vn 2

(6.3.3)

The total harmonic distortion of an amplier is dened as the ratio of the total signal power of all harmonics above the fundamental frequency to the signal power of the fundamental. It can be written as T HD = P2 + P3 + P4 + . . . + Pn 100% P1 (6.3.4)

Figure 6.9 shows the measured output spectra of an amplier with and without distortion. For both spectra, the input signal is a pure, 2.5 kHz sinusoid. The top spectrum

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Vout output signal of a non-linear amplifier

vout(t)
Vs

Vin

-Vs

output signal of an ideal amplifier

vin(t)

Figure 6.8 : Amplication of an arbitrary input signal using two dierent transfer characteristics. One of the characteristics is perfectly linear and it results in a larger, undistorted replica of the input signal. The second characteristic is quite nonlinear between the power supply limits and it results in nonlinear distortion. The output signal is not clipped but it does not have the same general shape of the input signal.

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Figure 6.9 : Output power spectra of an amplier displayed by a spectrum analyzer: without clipping (top) and with clipping (bottom). The frequency span is from 0 to 50 kHz. The center of the vertical scale is at - 20 dB and each vertical division corresponds to 10 dB.

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was obtained by setting the amplitude of the sinusoid to a suciently small value to avoid clipping. As expected, the spectrum consists of a single peak, corresponding to a sinusoid at 2.5 kHz. This shows that the amplier did not cause any distortion. The input was a sinusoid, the output is a sinusoid as well. The bottom spectrum was obtained by increasing the amplitude of the input signal to force the output into clipping. Now we can see that the power spectrum includes many new distortion harmonics which do not exist in the spectrum of the input signal. In other words, the amplier is producing these distortion harmonics out of nowhere. As expected, the harmonics exist at multiples of 2.5 kHz, the fundamental frequency of the distorted sinusoid. From theory, we know that the harmonics should extend all the way to innity, however, in Figure 6.9 , it is dicult to discern them from the noisy background beyond the 9th harmonic. We note that the vertical scale is logarithmic, hence, including nine harmonics in our calculation is probably more than enough to obtain a fairly accurate THD measurement. The signal power of the rst nine harmonics is listed in the table given below. The measurements were made directly from the bottom spectrum analyzer display in Figure 6.9 and then they were converted from dBW to Watt using P = 10dBW/10 (6.3.5)

The signal power of the fundamental is 10 W. Summing up the signal power of the distortion harmonics, n = 2 through n = 9 we obtain the distortion power as 5.96 mW. Substituting these values in equation 6.3.4, we obtain a total harmonic distortion, THD of 0.06%. While this seems like a fairly small distortion, it really is not because our hearing is surprisingly sensitive to this type of distortion. It is not uncommon to nd THD gures as low as 0.003% in high quality audio systems. Frequency (kHz) Power (dBW) 2.5 10 5.0 -29 7.5 -26 10.0 -30 12.5 -32.5 15.0 -34 17.5 -38 20.0 -43 22.5 -48 Power (Watt) 10 1.26 103 2.51 103 1.00 103 5.62 104 3.98 104 1.58 104 5.01 105 1.58 105

6.4

Output Power

The output power, Pout of an amplier is the real power delivered to the load resistance connected to the ampliers output port, hence, it can be expressed as:

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2 Vout (6.4.1) Rload where Vout is the RMS value of the output voltage. For an audio amplier, the load is an audio speaker, with a typical impedance of 4 or 8 . Impedance refers to the resistance of the speaker at a specic frequency. We expect our speakers to respond the same way to all audible frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz; Unfortunately, this is only partially true even for the best speakers.

Pout =

Example 6.3. An audio amplier can produce a maximum output power of 100 W , when it is
connected to an audio speaker with an impedance of 8 . If this power rating corresponds to the largest output signal the amplier can produce without clipping, determine the power supply used by the amplier. Solution: Using equation 6.4.1 with P = 100 W and Rload = 8 , the RMS value of the output signal can be found as Vout = 100 8 = 28.28 V

Assuming that this is the RMS value of a pure sinusoidal waveform used to test the amplier, we can nd its amplitude by multiplying RMS value by 2. This yields: Vp = Vout 2 40 V Therefore, the amplier is able to produce an output signal with a peak-to-peak value of 2 40 V = 80 V without clipping. To achieve this, the amplier must employ a dual power supply of 40 V .

6.5

Input Sensitivity

In audio terms, input sensitivity is the minimum RMS input voltage required to drive an amplier to its rated output level. In other words, this is the minimum voltage that causes the output to clip. Input sensitivity is commonly listed as one of the key specications of a high-delity amplier. In essence, it is a fairly simple concept, which provides another way of referring to the voltage gain. The following example demonstrates the relationship between voltage gain and input sensitivity.

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Example 6.4. The input sensitivity of an audio amplier is 500 mV . The amplier produces a
rated (maximum) output power of 100 W when it is connected to a speaker with an impedance of 8 . Find the voltage gain of the amplier. Solution: Using equation 6.4.1 the RMS output voltage producing the rated output power can be found as Vout = Pout Rload = 800 V The input sensitivity is the RMS input voltage leading to the rated output power. Therefore, the voltage gain can be found as the ratio between the output and input RMS voltages. This yields, 800 Av = 56.57 V 0.5

6.6

Power Gain
Pout Pin

The power gain of an amplier is measured in decibels and it is dened as G = 10 log (6.6.1)

where Pin and Pout are both dened for the standard load resistance of 1 . Expanding the logarithm in the above equation we obtain G = 10 log Pout 10 log Pin (6.6.2)

where 10 log Pin and 10 log Pout correspond to input and output signal power levels expressed in dBW respectively. Therefore, if the input power is given in dBW, the output power can be found by simply adding G to it.

Example 6.5. The signal power applied to an amplier is 1 W . The amplier has a power gain
of 25 dB. First nd the output signal power in dBW and then convert it to watts. Solution: First we have to express the input signal power in dBW. Pin = 10 log 1 W = 0 dBW Using equation 6.6.2, the output power can be found by adding the power gain, G to the input

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power expressed in dBW. This yields: Pout = G + Pin = 25 + 0 = 25 dBW Since dBW = 10 log P , The resulting output power can be expressed in watts as Pout = 1025/10 316.23 W

Example 6.6. The amplier of the previous example is connected to a 4 speaker. Find the
output power. Solution: We need to remember that the power gain is dened for the standard load resistance of 1 . The RMS voltage resulting in this power is Vout = 316.23 W 1 V If this voltage is applied to a load resistance of 4 , the resulting power is given by Pout = 316.23 V 2 79 W 4

It is also possible to express G in terms of Av . Using the relationship between power RMS value and signal power, the power gain can be written as, G = 10 log which can be simplied as: G = 20 log Av (6.6.3)
2 Vout 1 2 Vin 1

= 10 log

2 Vout 2 Vin

This is a convenient expression that allows us to go back and forth between the voltage gain and the power gain. Amplier manufacturers prefer the power gain in dB to the unitless voltage gain, Av in their list of specications.

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Example 6.7. Find the voltage gain of an amplier with a power gain of 30 dB.
Solution: Using equation 6.6.3, the voltage gain can be found as Av = 10G/20 = 1030/20 31.62

6.7

Frequency Response

The voltage gain of an amplier varies with frequency, which creates yet another challenge for the circuit designers. In general, the goal is to achieve a fairly constant voltage gain in a limited frequency range for a given application. For instance, audio ampliers are expected to provide constant gain within 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Outside this range, we do not really care if the gain shows any major uctuations. Figure 6.10 shows a typical frequency response for an audio amplier. The vertical axis gives the power gain of the amplier in dB. A logarithmic frequency axis is generally preferred. We can see that this particular amplier does not have an entirely at frequency response. A manufacturer may make the following statement referring to their amplier: The frequency response is at within 20 Hz to 20 kHz within 3 dB. This sentence implies that the power gain is really not constant but the variations are contained within a hopefully acceptable range. For high delity ampliers, even 3 dB is considered too much of a variation. As the price of the amplier goes up, it is not uncommon to nd ampliers frequency responses that are almost perfectly at within 0.03 dB!

Power Gain (dB)

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 101 102 103 104

Frequency (Hz)
Figure 6.10 : Frequency response of a typical amplier. While the impact of a varying frequency response on music is not considered as distortion,

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it can still have a profound impact on the music we hear. For instance, suppose we have an amplier whose gain appreciably drops beyond 10 kHz. You might argue that there arent many musical instruments that produce their fundamental tones above this frequency, hence, the amplier should have at best a minimal eect on music. Unfortunately, this way of thinking would not be correct because it completely ignores the importance of the harmonics. We must remember that it is those harmonics and their relative magnitudes that determine why a piano sounds very dierent than a guitar. Therefore, an amplier that cant amplify the guitar sound above 10 kHz would suppress the higher harmonics above this frequency, ultimately changing the instruments sound in a subtle way. The change perhaps will not be as obvious as the one caused by hard clipping, however, the overall character of the music will be dierent even if we dont recognize it. As it turns out, music is not a very demanding application considering the state of the amplier electronics today. There are however, many other applications for which the signal bandwidth is much wider than the modest, 20 Hz - 20 kHz bandwidth of audio signals. In general, applications that involve signals with sharp corners (e.g. square wave) will require better ampliers because their ner features come with strong higher order harmonics. An example is provided in Figure 6.11 , which shows the input and output waveforms of a real amplier. The input signal displayed on Channel 1 is a square wave and the amplied signal is displayed on Channel 2. We note that the output waveform is inverted similar to the amplier output shown in Figure 6.1 . Not surprisingly, the output signal does not possess the sharp corners of the input square wave. This is due to the fact that the amplier is not able to process the higher order harmonics as mentioned above.

6.8

Amplier Equivalent Circuit

Figure 7.10 shows the equivalent circuit of an amplier. An interesting point is that there is not an internal connection between the input and output ports, nevertheless, they are connected externally through the common ground. The resistor, Rin is the input resistance of the amplier. This is an important parameter because any two-port electronic circuit has a characteristic input resistance. We expect this resistance to be as high as possible in a good voltage amplier to avoid any voltage division from taking place at the input port of the amplier. Possibly, the most interesting feature of the equivalent circuit is that it includes a new element, a voltage controlled voltage source. Controlled voltage sources are indispensable circuit elements in equivalent circuits constructed to describe the operation of complex electronic circuits. The source included in our equivalent circuit somehow senses the voltage across the input resistance of the amplier and generates a voltage equal to the product of the input voltage and the voltage gain, Av . Other than the fact that the voltage generated by a controlled voltage source depends on the voltage somewhere else in the circuit, it is

161

Figure 6.11 : Channel 1 displays the input signal of an amplier. The amplied output signal is displayed on Channel 2, which shows that all the sharp corners of the square wave are lost due to the limited frequency response of the amplier. still a voltage source, which behaves just like the independent voltage sources we have seen before. The resistor, Rout is the output resistance of the amplier and it has to be as small as possible, again to avoid any voltage division with the load resistance connected to the output port of the amplier. As such, its impact on the circuit performance is identical to that of the output resistance of an independent voltage source.

Example 6.8. A microphone with an output resistance of 1000 is connected to the input port
of an amplier with a voltage gain of 100. The amplier has the input and output resistances of 4000 and 32 respectively. The output port of the amplier is connected to an audio speaker with an equivalent resistance of 8 . If the microphone is generating an input signal with an RMS value of 100 mV , what is the output power of the amplier? Solution: The equivalent circuit for the entire circuit with all the resistance values is shown in Figure 6.13 . The microphone signal, vs (t) is divided between the 1 k output resistance of the microphone and the 4 k input resistance of the amplier. Applying the voltage division rule to the two resistors, the true input voltage of the amplier can be found:

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Rout vin(t) Rin Avvin vout(t)

Figure 6.12 : Equivalent circuit of an amplier.

4000 vs (t) = 0.8vs (t) 1000 + 4000 The voltage generated by the voltage controlled voltage source is then equal to vin (t) = 100vin (t) = 80vs (t) The voltage generated by the voltage controlled voltage source is divided between the 32 output resistance of the amplier and the 8 audio speaker. Applying the voltage division rule, the output voltage can be found as follows: 8 80vs (t) = 16vs (t) 8 + 32 Assuming a linear amplier, the RMS value of the output signal should be 16 times larger than that of the input signal, i.e. 100 mV 16 = 1.6 V vout (t) =

In the example above, we have seen that even though the amplier has a voltage gain of 100, the usable voltage gain is only 16 due to the voltage divisions at the input and output ports. This is why a good voltage amplier must have the largest possible input resistance and the smallest possible output resistance. These are important design considerations for the circuit designer.

Example 6.9. An amplier with Rin and Rout 0 has a resistor, Rf connected between the
input and output ports. Because the resistor creates a link between the two ports it is referred to as the feedback resistor. The voltage source providing the input signal has a nite output resistance Rs and the amplier is connected to a load resistance, RL . Derive an equation for the output

163

1000

32

vs(t)

vin(t)

4000

100vin

vout(t)

Figure 6.13 : Equivalent circuit of a microphone amplier. The microphone and the load are both included in the circuit.

voltage in terms of the voltage source, vs (t). Solution: The equivalent circuit of the amplier is shown in Figure 6.14 . Since Rin , there can not be any current owing into the input port of the amplier, hence, iin = 0. To satisfy Kirchos current law at the input node, we must have is = if . Applying Kirchos voltage law to the rst loop yields: vs is Rs vin = 0 Considering the third loop, we can see that that the voltage controlled voltage source is in parallel with the load resistor, hence, we must have vout = Av vin . We can then write vin as vin = vout /Av and substitute it in the equation above. Solving the resulting equation for is yields, is = vs
vout Av

Rs

Applying Kirchos voltage law to the second loop yields, vin is Rf vout = 0 Substituting vin and is in the equation above, we obtain,
vout vout vs Av Rf vout = 0 Av Rs

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Solving this equation for vout yields, vout = vs Rf s

1 Av R

1+

Rf Rs

We can see that both the feedback and the source resistors impact the output voltage. It is interesting to consider a special case in which the voltage gain of the amplier is very very large. We can nd the output voltage for this case by evaluating the limit of the above expression as the voltage gain approaches innity. This yields, the following result vout vs Rf Rs

which has two interesting features. First, the result is negative, which indicates that the amplier will invert the input signal as in Figure 6.1 . Second, the output voltage is independent of the voltage gain of the amplier and it is only determined by the ratio of the resistors Rf and Rs . Therefore, if the voltage gain of the amplier is suciently large, its impact on the output voltage will be negligibly small. We shall return to this very concept when we begin designing our ampliers using operational ampliers. This is the subject of another chapter in this book.

Rf if if

Rs is vs(t) Loop 1 iin vin Avvin Loop 2 iout Loop 3 iL RL vout

Figure 6.14 : An amplier with a feedback resistor, Rf between the input and output ports. Rin and Rout 0

Example 6.10. Figure 6.15 shows the equivalent circuit of an amplier with the feedback resistor of the previous problem but with a nite input resistance and a non-zero output resistance.

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Use Kirchos laws to come up with ve independent equations that can be solved to nd the ve unknown currents, is , iin , if , iout and iL . Solution: We can write the following three independent loop equations: vs is Rs iin Rin = 0 KV L1 Av iin Rin iout Rout iL RL = 0 KV L2 iin Rin if Rf + iout Rout Av iin Rin = 0 KV L3

where we have used vin = iin Rin . We can also write the following independent node equations: is if iin = 0 KCL1 if + iout iL = 0 KCL2 The ve equations can be solved simultaneously to nd the ve unknown currents. Once the load current is known, an equation can be derived for the output voltage in terms of the source voltage, vs .

Rf if if

Rs Loop 3 is vs(t) Loop 1 iin Rin vin Avvin

Rout iout Loop 2 iL RL vout

Figure 6.15 : Equivalent circuit with the feedback resistor, Rf , nite Rin and non-zero Rout

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Problems
P 6.1 A sinusoidal test signal, which has an amplitude of 12 mV is applied to the input port of a perfectly linear amplier. The amplier has a voltage gain of 100. Assume the input signal is suciently small to avoid any clipping of the output signal. a) Find the amplitude of the output signal; b) Find the RMS value of the output signal. P 6.2 An amplier is producing an output signal with an RMS value of 2 V. If the amplier is connected to an 8 speaker, what is the output power of the amplier? P 6.3 Suppose the total signal power at the output port of an audio amplier is 10 W. Find the output power if the speaker has an impedance of 4 . Hint: The signal power is the electric power dissipated on a load of 1 . P 6.4 A microphone is connected to the input port of an audio amplier. The amplier has a voltage gain of 4000. The output port of the amplier is connected to an audio speaker with an impedance of 8 . a) Find the amplier output power if the RMS value of the signal generated by the microphone is 10 mV ; b) Use your result to calculate the signal-to-noise ratio of the amplier (in dB) if the RMS value of the noise at the output port is 400 mV . P 6.5 A microphone amplier used in a large concert hall is capable of producing 400 W with a 4 audio speaker when the RMS value of the signal at its microphone input is 10 mV. Find the voltage gain of the amplier.

Figure P6.6 P 6.6 A sinusoidal test signal is applied to the input port of a mediocre amplier. Figure P6.6 shows the output signal and its power spectrum. The output waveform appears to be a sinusoid without any sign of clipping, however, its spectrum includes several equally spaced harmonics indicative of distortion. a) What is the frequency of the original signal? Hint: You can nd this in the time-domain; b) What is the separation between different harmonics in Hz? c) Determine the center frequency and the frequency span of the power spectrum display; d) Determine the total harmonic distortion at the amplier output. Note that the vertical axis is given in dBW. P 6.7 An amplier, which has a voltage gain of 200 is powered by a dual 12 V power supply. An 8 speaker is connected to the output port. a) What is the largest output power the amplier can produce without clipping distortion? b) Find the RMS value of the largest input signal we can apply without causing the output to clip? P 6.8 An audio amplier has the input and output resistances of 100 k and 25

167

Vx

5V

4Vx

Figure P6.9 respectively. The amplier has a voltage gain of 100 and its output port is connected to an 8 audio speaker. Assume the signal source is a CD player with a source resistance of 100 . Determine the amplier output power when the signal power of the music generated by the CD player is 100 mW. P 6.9 Find the voltage, Vx and the current owing in the loop shown in Figure P6.9. Assume the resistor is 1 k.

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Chapter 7 Operational Ampliers

We have discussed the concept of signal amplication in Chapter 6. We have also learned that this fundamental signal processing operation is performed by special electronic circuits called ampliers. In this chapter, we introduce an actual amplier, available in the form of an integrated circuit (IC) or a chip that you can buy from your neighborhood electronic store for less than a dollar! The term IC refers to a complete circuit, which may require only a few external components to do its job. ICs come in plastic or metal casings such as the ones shown in Figure 7.1 . This entire chapter is dedicated to a particular IC called the operational amplier or in short, op-amp. Because of their low cost and unique properties, operational ampliers are widely used in a variety of analog signal processing applications. Furthermore, they are so easy to use that you do not have to be a circuit expert to design circuits with op-amps, which is yet another fundamental reason behind their popularity.

7.1

Basic Properties

The circuit symbol of an operational amplier is the triangle shown in Figure 7.2 . The symbol shows two independent input terminals labeled + and - and a single output terminal. Here, we need to stress the fact that the two input terminals are not identical to each other and we will explain below why this is the case. Just as any other electronic circuit, an op-amp requires a power supply to operate. A standard op-amp employs a dual () power supply,

Figure 7.1 : Dual-in-line package is a standard integrated circuit package. 169

170

Input 1 Output Input 2

Figure 7.2 : The circuit symbol of an operational amplier

1(t)

vs2(t)

vout(t)

RL

Figure 7.3 : Operational amplier is designed to amplify the signal applied between the input terminals. Ao is the voltage gain of the operational amplier hence, two terminals of a typical op-amp IC are reserved for the power supply connections. These terminals are normally omitted from the op-amp symbol to avoid unnecessary clutter in circuit diagrams. Figure 7.3 shows a basic amplier circuit, which includes an op-amp, two independent voltage sources, vs1 and vs2 and a load resistor, RL . We shall refer to the voltages applied to the two input terminals as v + and v such that v + = vs1 and v = vs2 . The output voltage of this amplier is given by, vout = Ao v + v = Ao (vs1 vs2 ) (7.1.1)

where Ao is the open-loop voltage gain of the operational amplier. According to this equation, an op-amp multiplies the dierence between the two input voltages by the openloop voltage gain, Ao . While we have the option of using two input sources, there is no rule that says we can

171

vs(t)

vout

RL

(a)

vs(t)

vout

RL

(b)

Figure 7.4 : In both circuits, one of the input terminals is grounded and the input signal is applied to the other terminal. not use a single source and ground the other terminal. After all, when we ground one of the input terminals, we are still applying a voltage, it is just 0 V ! With a single source, we have two options; which input terminal should we connect the signal source to? The terminal labeled with a plus or a minus sign? The two circuit choices are shown in Figure 7.4 . In the rst circuit, the input signal, vs is applied to the terminal labeled with a plus sign, that is, v + = vs and the other input is grounded. In this case, the output voltage is given by vout = Ao (vs 0) = Ao vs In the second circuit, the signal is applied to the terminal labeled with a minus sign, that is, v = vin . The output voltage is then given by vout = Ao (0 vs ) = Ao vs

172

As we can see, the only dierence between the two equations is the minus sign in the second equation, which implies inversion of the input signal during amplication. Because this happens only when the signal is applied to the input with the minus sign, that input is called the inverting input of the op-amp. Not surprisingly, the other input is referred to as the non-inverting input.

7.2

What makes an op-amp so unique?

What separates operational ampliers from other ampliers? What is unique about them? Why the name operational ? These are important questions that we need to answer. First and foremost, operational ampliers are ampliers just like all other amplier circuits. The dierence is, op-amps have some extraordinary properties. Actually, there are four key requirements that must be satised to qualify an amplier as an operational amplier. All four of these requirements must be satised for this qualication. These are: 1. An operational amplier is a dierence amplier, that is, it must have two input terminals and it should be able to provide an output voltage proportional to the the voltage dierence between them. 2. The open-loop voltage gain, Ao of an op-amp must be very large. Practical op-amps have voltage gains as high as 200,000. For an ideal op-amp, Ao = . 3. The input resistance of an op-amp must also be very large. For an ideal op-amp, Rin = . This guarantees that the currents owing in and out of the input terminals are negligibly small. 4. The output resistance of an op-amp must be negligibly small. For an ideal op-amp, Rout = 0. Any good amplier should have a high input resistance and low output resistance but ordinary ampliers do not have innitely large gains, no matter how good they are. If you are wondering, why would I need an amplier with such a high gain? Would clipping not be a problem with almost any input signal? you are absolutely right! With an innitely large voltage gain, it is almost certain that the output voltage will be clipped for any practical input level. Just imagine having an input voltage as small as 1 mV . With a gain of 200000, the output voltage will want to reach 200 V ! Unless the power supply voltage is that high, the output will be badly clipped. Clearly, we cant have much use for an amplier with such a large gain. It turns out that except the comparator application that we shall introduce in the next section, we never use op-amps without external resistors, which serve the purpose of reducing the gain to reasonable levels.

173

vin(t) Vref

RL

vout(t)

Figure 7.5 : An op-amp used as a comparator. When the input signal is larger than the reference voltage, Vref , the output voltage is equal to the positive supply voltage. Otherwise, it is equal to the negative supply voltage.

7.3

Op-Amp as a Comparator

In this section, we show how an op-amp can serve as a comparator, which happens to be the only op-amp application that does not rely on external components. The circuit diagram is shown in Figure 7.5 . You can see that all we have in this circuit is an operational amplier with two input sources. An AC voltage source is connected to the non-inverting input of the operational amplier. We will refer to this signal as the input signal of the comparator. The DC voltage source connected to the inverting input is the reference voltage, Vref . Using equation 7.1.1, the output voltage can be written as. vout = Ao (vs Vref ) Suppose the operational amplier is powered by a dual power supply with voltages, Vs . According to the equation above, if vs > Vref , the output will try to reach a very large positive value but it will never get there due to clipping at the positive supply voltage level. Alternatively, if Vref > vs the output will try to go to a very large negative value but it wont be able go below the negative supply voltage, Vs . In short, the circuit can have only two output voltage levels, Vs . This circuit is called a comparator because it compares the input signal, vin to the DC reference voltage, Vref . A comparator circuit can be used to convert any periodic signal to a square pulse train. This is demonstrated in Figure 7.6 for an arbitrary periodic input signal. We can see that the output is a square wave oscillating between the positive and negative power supply levels.

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Input Signal Vref time Comparator Output Signal

+Vs

time -Vs

Figure 7.6 : The input and output signals of a comparator. When the input signal larger than the reference voltage, the output is equal to the positive supply voltage. If smaller, the output is equal to the negative supply voltage. This is identical to hard clipping discussed in the amplication chapter. The gain of the amplier is so high that the only voltage levels we can get out of this circuit are the clipped output levels.

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7.4

Basic Amplier Congurations

In this section, we introduce two basic amplier congurations, which can both be realized with a single operational amplier and a few external resistors. The circuits, which are referred to as the inverting and non-inverting amplier stages are shown in Figure 7.7 . We note that both ampliers include a resistor, Rf connected between the output terminal and the inverting input of the op-amp. Because Rf forms a link between the input and output ports of the amplier, it is referred to as the feedback resistor, hence, we use the subscript, f . By the word link, we imply that some information from the output (in this case, the output voltage) is sent back to the input port and the amplier somehow uses this information to ne tune its operation. This is the essence of feedback and it is a very important concept in electrical engineering. We must also stress the fact that the choice of the inverting input for Rf is not arbitrary. In fact, we will go ahead and state that we can not construct an amplier by connecting a resistor between the output and the non-inverting input of an op-amp. We will try to explain this later in the chapter. For now, just remember that the feedback resistor is always connected between the output and the inverting input of the amplier. Figure 7.8 shows the same amplier stages drawn in a slightly dierent way. The dierence is that a separate ground symbol is used at every point on the circuit where there is a connection to the ground line in Figure 7.7 . This is how we normally show our gures to reduce the clutter as much as possible. Therefore, from now on, we shall rely on you to connect the ground points in your head. The usefulness of this drawing style may not be so obvious to you with these relatively simple amplier congurations but we assure you that it will be when we gradually move to more complex circuits.

7.4.1

Non-Inverting Amplier

In the non-inverting amplier conguration shown in Figure 7.8 .a, the input signal is applied directly to the non-inverting input. As noted above, the feedback resistor is connected between the output and the inverting input of the operational amplier. A second resistor, Rn is used between the inverting input and the ground. The voltage gain of this amplier is given by the following simple equation: Av = 1 + Rf Rn (7.4.1)

It is important to note that that the innitely large open-loop voltage gain of the op-amp, Ao , is not even in the nal voltage gain equation of the amplier. This implies that we can use op-amps from two dierent manufacturers with two dierent voltage gains in the circuit of Figure 7.8 .a. The overall gain of the amplier, Av will remain the same because it is independent of Ao .

176

Another missing item in equation 7.4.1 is the load resistor. Therefore, it just does not matter if the load resistance is innitely large or only 4 ! It turns out that this can be true only if the output resistance is very small compared to the load resistance. Remember that to have a negligibly small output resistance is one of the four requirements that an amplier must satisfy to be qualied as an op-amp. It is indeed remarkably simple to design a fully functional amplier using two external resistors. To a large extent, even the actual values of the resistors do not matter. The only thing that concerns us is the ratio of Rf and Rn . This simplicity is a key advantage of operational ampliers. Not that we want to discourage you from pursuing a career path in circuit design, but you really do not have to be a circuit expert to use operational ampliers in your circuits. The transfer characteristic of the non-inverting amplier is shown in Figure 7.9 .a. As always, the slope of the characteristic is the voltage gain of the amplier and it is given by equation 7.4.1. We must stress the fact that in designing an op-amp, much attention is given to achieving an almost perfectly linear transfer characteristic between the power supply limits. Other than that, the transfer characteristics shown in Figure 7.9 are identical to those we have seen in the chapter on signal amplication.

7.4.2

Inverting Amplier

The inverting amplier conguration is shown in Figure 7.7 .b. Again, we have the feedback resistor Rf between the output and the inverting input of the operational amplier. This time, the non-inverting input of the op-amp is grounded. The voltage gain of this amplier stage is given by: vout Rf = (7.4.2) vin Rn The negative voltage gain implies that the output signal is a larger but inverted version of the input signal. If the input signal is a sinusoid, the input and output signals will have a phase dierence of radians or 180 degrees. The transfer characteristic of the inverting amplier is shown in Figure 7.9 .b. Besides the fact that it has a negative slope, it does not have any unusual features. Again, the slope of the characteristic is equal to the voltage gain and it is given by equation 7.4.2. Av =

Example 7.1. The signal v(t) = (10mV )cos(100t + /4) is amplied by an inverting amplier. The resistors used in the circuit are Rf = 100k and Rn = 1k. Find the output signal
Solution: First we need to nd the voltage gain of the amplier using Eq.7.4.2:

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vin(t) Rf Rn

RL

vout(t)

(a)

Rf

Rn

vin(t)

RL

vout(t)

(b)

Figure 7.7 : Circuit diagrams of two basic op-amp amplier stages: a) non-inverting amplier and b) inverting amplier.

178

vin(t)

RL Rf Rn

vout(t)

(a)

Rf

Rn

vin(t)

RL

vout(t)

(b)

Figure 7.8 : Circuit diagrams of the a) non-inverting and b) inverting amplier stages drawn using the ground symbol at multiple points on the circuit. The circuits are identical to those shown in Figure 7.7

179

Vout + Vs

Vout + Vs

Slope = 1 + Rf /Rn

Slope = - Rf /Rn

-Vin, max - Vs (a)

Vin, max

Vin

-Vin, max - Vs (b)

Vin, max Vin

Figure 7.9 : Transfer characteristic of a) non-inverting and b) inverting amplier stages.

Av = Rf /Rn = 100k/1k = 100 We then nd the output signal by multiplying the input signal with the voltage gain: vout (t) = 100 vin (t) = 1000 cos(100t + /4) mV Recall that the minus sign can be absorbed in a phase angle of /2. If we use +/2, this yields, vout (t) = 1000 cos(100t + /4 + /2) mV = 1000 cos(100t + 3/4) mV

Example 7.2. What is the peak-to-peak voltage of the largest input signal that a non-inverting
stage can amplify without clipping with Rf = 100 k and Rn = 10 k if the amplier is powered by a dual 9 V power supply? Solution: From equation 7.4.1, the voltage gain of the amplier can be found as Av = 1 + Rf = 11 Rn

Since a dual, 9 V power supply is used, the peak-to-peak value of the largest output the

180

amplier can produce without clipping is 2 9 V = 18 V . We can nd the corresponding peakto-peak input voltage by dividing this maximum output voltage by the voltage gain, which yields 18/11 1.64 V .

7.5

Why do we need such a large Ao?

Now that we know how the amplier circuits that utilize op-amps look like, we can go back and explain some of the arguments we have previously made in this chapter. Most importantly, we need to understand the need for that huge open loop gain of op-amps. In this pursuit, we will rst learn how to construct the equivalent circuit of an op-amp and then use this circuit to derive the equations 7.4.1 and 7.4.2.

7.5.1

Equivalent circuit of an Op-Amp

We have learned how to work with amplier equivalent circuits in the chapter on signal amplication. Figure 7.10 shows two equivalent circuits used for operational ampliers. The top circuit includes the input and output resistances. The bottom circuit assumes Rin = and Rout = 0. The open-loop voltage gain, Ao has been used to create the voltage controlled voltage source. Comparing these circuits to those we have seen in the chapter on signal amplication, we realize that the only dierence is the fact that op-amp has two inputs as opposed to the single input of a standard amplier. The input voltage that appears across the input resistance is the dierence between the voltages applied to the non-inverting and inverting input terminals as we have seen before.

7.5.2

Non-Inverting Amplier

Figure 7.11 shows the equivalent circuit of the non-inverting amplier conguration. You should compare this circuit with the non-inverting amplier in Figure 7.8 .a. Our goal in this section is to use the equivalent circuit to derive an equation for the output voltage. Lets begin our analysis from the output port. Since the output resistance of the op-amp is zero, the voltage controlled voltage source is connected directly across the load resistor. This yields, vout = Ao vin where vin = v + v Therefore, we need to express the op-amp input voltage vin in terms of the source voltage, vin . First we note that because the input resistance of the op-amp is innitely large, the

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Realistic Op-Amp Rout

Rin

vin

Aovin

vout

Ideal Op-Amp

vin

Aovin

vout

Figure 7.10 : Equivalent circuits used for operational ampliers. The top circuit includes both input and output resistances. The bottom circuit assumes Rin and Rout 0.

182

currents owing into the input terminals of the op-amp are both zero. Applying Kirchos current law to the meeting node of the resistors Rf and Rn , we nd, if = in Now, we shall write two loop equations. The rst one will include the source voltage, the input port and the resistor, Rn : vin vin in Rn = 0 which can be solved for vin to yield, vin = vin in Rn The second loop equation will include both ports and it will go through the feedback resistor: vout in (Rf + Rn ) = 0 where we have used if = in . This equation can be solved for in to yield in = Combining the two equations, we obtain: vin = vin Rn vout Rf + Rn vout (Rf + Rn )

By substituting this equation in vout = Ao vin and solving the equation for the voltage gain, Av = vout /vin , we obtain: Av = 1 Rn + Ao Rf + Rn
1

(7.5.1)

We can see that the nal equation is a function of the open-loop gain, Ao . Figure 7.12 shows Av plotted as a function of Ao . This particular plot was created for Rf /Rn = 100. We can see that if Ao is suciently large, the voltage gain of the non-inverting amplier is independent of Ao . Indeed, if we take the limit of the above gain equation as Ao approaches innity, the resulting voltage gain equation is identical to the non-inverting gain given in Equation 7.4.1. Rf Av = 1 + Rn Therefore, it really does not matter if an op-amp has an open-loop voltage gain, Ao of fty thousand or one million! This is a great advantage considering a practical but a very

183

if

Rf

if

i=0

iout iL

if

vin i=0

Aovin

vout

RL

vin=vs(t) in Rn
Figure 7.11 : Equivalent circuit of the non-inverting amplier shown in Figure 7.8 .a. real problem. Integrated circuits do show variations in their specications arising from fabrication related variations, hence, it is virtually impossible to nd two identical ICs. The clear advantage of the very large open-loop gain is that the variations in the op-amp specications do not inuence the performance of the non-inverting amplier.

7.5.3

Inverting Amplier

We will now repeat the same analysis for the inverting amplier stage shown in Figure 7.7 .b. The equivalent circuit is shown in Figure 7.13 . The output voltage is again determined by the voltage controlled voltage source: vout = Ao vin where vin is the voltage between the input terminals of the op-amp. It is important to note that the equivalent circuit does not include the input and output resistances since we assume Rin and Rout 0. We begin our derivation by applying Kirchos voltage law to the input loop and obtain the following equation: vin in Rn + vin = 0

184

120

Voltage Gain (Av)

100 80 60 40 20 0 102 103 104 105 106

Rf / Rn = 100

10

Open-Loop Gain (Ao)

Figure 7.12 :

185

Solving the above expression for vin and then substituting it in the equation for vout , we obtain: vout = Ao (in Rn vin ) We need to express in in terms of the source voltage and the independent parameters. To do this, we apply Kirchos voltage law to the loop that includes both input and output ports as well as the feedback resistor. This yields, vout if Rf + in Rn vin = 0 Applying Kirchos current law to the node of the inverting input we obtain: if = in The two equations above can be combined to yield in = vin vout Rf + Rn

We can now substitute the above equation for in in the equation for the output voltage. Solving the equation for the voltage gain, Av = vout /vin yields,
f Ao Rf +Rn vout Av = = vin 1 + Ao R Rn n +R f

(7.5.2)

Similar to the equation derived for the non-inverting amplier, the voltage gain is a function of the open-loop gain and the external resistors, Rf and Rn . If we take the limit of the above equation as Ao approaches innity, we obtain the inverting amplier gain given in equation 7.4.2. Av = Rf Rn

It is also important to note that the load resistance, RL does not appear in either 7.4.2 or 7.5.2. This is again due to the fact that the output resistance of the op-amp, Rout shown in Figure 7.10 is not included in the analysis assuming that it is negligibly small.

7.6

Virtual Short Concept

In this section, we introduce the virtual short concept, which greatly simplies the analysis of operational amplier circuits. In the previous section, we have used the op-amp equivalent circuit to derive the voltage gain expressions, 7.5.1 and 7.5.2 for the non-inverting and

186

if

Rf

if

i=0

iout iL

vin Rn in if i=0

Aovin

vout

RL

vin = vs(t)

Figure 7.13 : Equivalent circuit of the inverting amplier stage shown in Figure 7.8 .b. inverting amplier stages respectively. In both expressions, the voltage gain was expressed in terms of a nite open loop gain, Ao . We then asked the question, what if Ao is very very large?. To nd the answer, we evaluated the limits of both expressions as Ao was allowed to approach , which yielded the simple expressions 7.4.1 and 7.4.2. The virtual short concept upfront assumes that the open loop gain, Ao is innitely large in addition to the assumptions Rin and Rout 0. Using the op-amp equivalent circuit in Figure 7.10 , we can write vout (t) (7.6.1) Ao If we now make the assumption, Ao , the fraction yields zero no matter how large the output voltage is as long as it is nite. Therefore, by assuming an innitely large voltage gain for the operational amplier, we are implicitly assuming v + v = vin = v+ = v (7.6.2)

which is exactly what we would have if the two input terminals were shorted. We know that they are not shorted, hence, we say that there exists a virtual short between the input terminals. It turns out that virtual short is a very powerful tool in analyzing op-amp circuits. In

187

essence, by making the innitely large open-loop gain assumption upfront, we are avoiding any complex expressions in our derivations. Because the two gain stages we have seen so far are very basic, the need for an analysis short-cut may not be so obvious at this point. Just be patient, before the chapter is over we will be analyzing far more complex circuits, which will be very dicult to analyze without the virtual short concept. Before we move on, we shall repeat ourselves one more time and derive the expression for the inverting amplier gain using the virtual short concept. We shall leave derivation of the non-inverting amplier gain given in equation 7.4.1 to you as an exercise.

7.6.1

Derivation of the Inverting Amplier Voltage Gain

As a rst example of this technique, we will derive the inverting amplier gain equation. We will again refer to Figure 7.8 . Since the non-inverting input is grounded, v + = 0. Using the virtual short concept, v = v+ = 0 We can nd the current, in as, in = The current if is given by, if = vout vout v = Rf Rf v vin vin = Rn Rn

Since the current owing into the inverting input of the operational amplier is zero, Kirchos current law yields, if = in Substituting the expressions for the two currents, we obtain vout vin = Rf Rn Solving for the ratio vout /vin , we obtain the voltage gain of the inverting amplier that we have found before. Av = Rf vout = vin Rn

We hope you realize how simple this analysis is relative to the one given in the previous section.

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7.7

Applications of Operational Ampliers

In this section, we will introduce a few applications of op-amps in analog signal processing to give you a basic idea about the things you can do with them. These are real circuits used in real hardware.

7.7.1

Audio Mixer - Summing Amplier

In live audio recording, one of the indispensable tools of a recording engineer is an audio mixer. The instrument provides inputs for a number of microphones with an individual level control for each input. The output signal can then be sent to a recording device. The block diagram of a typical recording set-up is shown in Figure 7.14 . Slider potentiometers are often used on mixers to set the voltage gain for each microphone input as shown in Figure 7.16 . A high quality audio mixer can be realized using a single operational amplier as shown in Figure 7.15 . Microphones are replaced by the voltage sources and the operational amplier is used in the inverting conguration. The circuit is commonly referred to as a summing amplier since it can be used to add any number of voltage sources. Using the virtual short concept, we can analyze the circuit and nd the output voltage very quickly and easily. Since the non-inverting input terminal is grounded, using the virtual short concept we can claim that the voltage at the inverting input terminal is also zero. v = v+ = 0 The current owing through each input resistor can be written as, in = vn v vn = Rn Rn

MICROPHONES

AUDIO MIXER

RECORDING DEVICE

Figure 7.14 : Set up used to record signals from four microphones

189

i4

R4 R3 R2 R1 iT if

v4 v3 v2 v1

Rf

i3 i2 i1

vout

Figure 7.15 : Summing Amplier

Figure 7.16 : A commercial audio mixer.

190

Rf i2 R2 R1 iT if

VDC vs

i1

vout

Figure 7.17 : An op-amp circuit used to add a DC o-set to a time-varying signal. where n = 1,2,3 or 4. The current if is given by, if = vout v vout = Rf Rf

Applying Kirchos current law to the node of the inverting input terminal yields, iT + if = 0 where we assumed that the current owing into the inverting input of the operational amplier is zero. Since the current iT is equal to the sum of the currents owing through the input resistors, we have, i1 + i2 + i3 + i4 + if = 0 Substituting the current expressions and solving for vout we obtain, vout = Rf v2 v3 v4 v1 + + + R1 R2 R3 R4 (7.7.1)

which gives the output signal in terms of the four input voltages. We can see that a dierent gain can be applied to each input source simply by changing the resistors, Rn . In an audio mixer, potentiometers are used in place of the xed resistors.

7.7.2

DC Level Shifter

Sometimes, it is necessary to add a DC oset to a time varying signal, which can be easily accomplished using a summing amplier. The circuit is shown in Figure 7.17 . We can follow the steps used in the previous section to nd the output voltage as given below.

191

Rf

vin(t)

RL

Figure 7.18 : Dierentiator circuit diagram. The output signal is proportional to the derivative of the input signal.

vout = Rf

vin vDC + R1 R2

(7.7.2)

By making the resistor R2 variable, the signal vin can be raised to the DC oset desired.

7.7.3

Dierentiator

Now we shall consider another classic application of operational ampliers. The circuit diagram is given in Figure 7.18 . The circuit is referred as a dierentiator because the output signal is proportional to the derivative of the input signal. In analyzing this circuit, we have to remember and use the I-V characteristic of a capacitor given by, dvc dt We note that the non-inverting input of the operational amplier is grounded. Using the virtual short between the two input terminals, we conclude that the inverting input is also at the ground potential. ic = C v = v+ = 0 We can then write the equations given below for the currents if and ic . if = vout vout v = Rf Rf

192

dvc d(vin v ) dvin =C =C dt dt dt Applying Kirchos current law to the node where Rf and the capacitor meet, ic = C if = ic Substituting the expressions found for these two currents, we obtain the nal expression for the output voltage. vout = CRf dvin dt

7.8

Input Resistance of an Operational Amplier Circuit

As we have seen in the previous chapter, the input resistance of a voltage amplier has to be as high as possible. In this section, we shall learn how to nd the input resistance of an actual amplier circuit employing an operational amplier. In the chapter on signal amplication, we have dened the input resistance of an amplier, Rin as Rin = vin iin (7.8.1)

Lets apply this denition to the inverting amplier circuit. The amplier input current is the current owing through the input signal source, which is the same current owing through the resistor, Rn . The input current can be expressed as: iin = vin v vin = Rn Rn

where we used v = v + = 0 using the virtual short concept. Rearranging the equation, we can nd the input resistance of the amplier circuit as Rin = Rn (7.8.2)

Therefore, the resistor Rn must be as large as possible in a good amplier design. Since the voltage gain is equal to Rf /Rn , the feedback resistor can then be chosen to obtain the desired voltage gain. Lets now consider the input resistance of the non-inverting amplier. The input voltage source is connected directly to the non-inverting input of the operational amplier, hence the input current is supposed to ow directly into the operational amplier. But we know that

193

in a good operational amplier, this current is practically zero, which yields an innitely large input resistance according to vin vin = (7.8.3) iin 0 Clearly, this gives a major advantage to the non-inverting amplier stage when the application requires an amplier with a high input resistance. Rin =

194

iin
1k

10 k

vin(t)

vout

10 k

1k

Figure P7.1

iin vin(t)

vout

Problems
P 7.1 Given the amplier shown in Figure P7.1, a) Determine if the amplier is an inverting or non-inverting stage; b) Find the voltage gain of the amplier; c) Find the RMS value of the output signal if the input signal is a 10 kHz sinusoid with a peak-to-peak value of 200 mV. Assume the output signal is not clipped. P 7.2 Find the input resistance of the amplier shown in Figure P7.1. P 7.3 Given the amplier shown in Figure P7.3, a) Determine if the amplier is an inverting or non-inverting stage; b) Find the voltage gain of the amplier; c) Find the input resistance of the amplier. P 7.4 A 100 load resistor is connected to the output port of the operational amplier circuit shown in Figure P7.4. a) Find the voltage gain of the amplier; b) What is the impact of the load resistor on the voltage gain? P 7.5 A 1.5 k resistor has been connected between the non-inverting input of the operational amplier and the ground in the inverting amplier stage shown in Figure P7.5. a) Find the voltage gain of

Figure P7.3

10 k

1k

vin(t)

100

vout

Figure P7.4

195

iin 1 k
10 k

1k

vin(t)
100

10 k

vout

vin(t)

1k

vout
1k

Figure P7.5

if in
Rn Rf

Figure P7.7 of the extra resistor on the voltage gain?; c) Does the extra resistor have an impact on the input resistance? Explain why or why not. Derive an equation for the output voltage in terms of the input sources, v1 and v2 . All three operational ampliers shown in Figure P7.8 are powered by a dual 9 V power supply. What is the largest peakto-peak value each input source can have to avoid clipping distortion? The input sources v1 and v2 in Figure P7.8 are generating sinusoids at two different frequencies but with the same peakto-peak value of 1 V . Suppose the amplier is connected to an audio speaker with an impedance of 4 . Find the average power dissipated on the speaker. Derive an equation for the output voltage of the circuit shown in Figure P7.11 in terms of the source voltage, vs and the DC voltage source, VDC . Derive an equation for the output voltage of the operational amplier circuit shown in Figure P7.12 in terms of the

vs(t)

R1

R2

i1

i2

vout

P 7.8

Figure P7.6 the amplier; b) What is the impact of the extra resistor on the voltage gain? P 7.6 Given the op-amp circuit shown in Figure P7.6, a) Find the currents, i1 , i2 , if , in in terms of the resistors and the source voltage, vs . Your answers should agree with the current directions shown on the circuit diagram; b) Derive an equation for the output voltage; c) Find the input resistance of the circuit. P 7.7 A 1 k resistor has been connected between the non-inverting input of the operational amplier and the input source in the non-inverting amplier stage shown in Figure P7.7. a) Find the voltage gain of the amplier; b) What is the impact

P 7.9

P 7.10

P 7.11

P 7.12

196

Rf Rn

v1(t)
10 k 47 k

vout

v1(t) v2(t) vout

3.3 k

Rn Rf

Figure P7.12

v2(t)
Figure P7.8

22 k 1k

vs(t) VDC

vout

source voltages v1 and v2 . P 7.13 Suppose the AC voltage source in Figure P7.11 is generating a sinusoid, which has an RMS value of 100 mV and VDC = 50 mV . Find the signal power of the output signal. P 7.14 The feedback resistor in the op-amp circuit shown in Figure P7.14 is replaced by a non-linear element with an IV char2 acteristic given by ix = vx . Derive an equation for the output voltage in terms of the source voltage, vs . Note that your nal equation should not include either vx or ix . P 7.15 Given the circuit shown in Figure P7.15, derive a dierential equation that relates the source voltage to the output voltage in terms of the resistors, R1 , R2 , Rf and the capacitor, C.

Figure P7.11

197

vx
10 k

ix vout

vs(t)

Figure P7.14

Rf R1

vout
R2

vs(t)

Figure P7.15

198

Chapter 8 Filters
We can nd many dierent types of lters in our daily lives. A water lter can remove undesirable chemicals such as lead from the drinking water. Sunglasses reduce the intensity of the ultraviolet radiation entering our eyes. A photographer uses color lters to enhance or attenuate dierent wavelengths in the visible spectrum. In electronics, a lter is used when we need to amplify or attenuate the signal intensity in a certain frequency range. There are many practical applications of lters in electronics. Here are just a few examples from the audio world: A radio receiver makes use of a lter to tune to a radio station broadcasting in a given frequency range. A music signal from a stereo system may contain some high-frequency noise generated by the electronic circuits used in signal processing. A lter can be used to remove the noise without altering the rest of the music. The treble control on your stereo system relies on a lter to change the intensity of the high frequency content of the music played. A typical high-end audio speaker box houses three speakers tuned to dierent ranges of the audible spectrum. A sub-woofer is used for low-frequencies, a tweeter is used for high frequencies and a good general purpose speaker is used for the mid-range. Filters in the speaker box divide the music into three dierent frequency ranges such that only certain frequencies can be applied to each speaker. A lter can be constructed from just resistors and capacitors or it can be an electronic circuit employing op-amps or individual transistors. Nowadays, high quality lters are available in integrated circuit (IC) form requiring a few external components to operate. In this chapter we will discuss fundamentals of ltering as an analog signal processing technique. 199

200

8.1

Ampliers and Filters

There are great similarities between ampliers and lters. First and foremost, just like ampliers, lters are two-port circuits. An electrical signal is applied to the input port of a lter and the ltered signal is taken from the output port. A lter attenuates the harmonics of an input signal that fall outside a certain frequency range, often referred to as the pass-band of the lter. The harmonics that are within the pass-band, pass through the lter without any attenuation. This is equivalent to having an amplier with a voltage gain of unity (or zero power gain since G = 20 log Av ) in a certain frequency range. Outside the pass-band, the signal is attenuated or suppressed, that is, Av < 1 or G < 0. As shown in Figure 8.1 , the equivalent circuit of an amplier is identical to that of an amplier. Just like any two-port circuit, a lter has an input resistance and an output resistance. Typically, a lter is not expected to amplify the signal in the pass-band (Av 1), hence, the voltage waveform generated by the voltage controlled voltage source is identical to the waveform applied to the input port of the lter. We should add however that amplication, (i.e. Av > 1) is a possibility with electronic lters. As long as the input signal is suppressed outside the pass-band, we have a lter.

Rout vin(t) Rin Avvin vout(t)

Figure 8.1 : Equivalent circuit of a lter is identical to that of an amplier.

8.2

Ideal Filters

An ideal lter completely removes the harmonics of the input signal that fall outside the pass-band of the lter. Figure 8.2 illustrates the frequency response of three commonly used lters referred to as low-pass, high-pass and band-pass lters. For an ideal lter, Av = 1 in the pass-band, which means that the input signal passes

201

Av

Low-Pass

Av

High-Pass

Av

Band-Pass

fc

fc

fc1

fc2

Figure 8.2 : Frequency response of ideal low-pass, high-pass and pass-band lters. through the lter without any attenuation. Outside the pass-band (referred to as the stopband ), Av = 0 or G = , hence, harmonics of the signal in this range are completely suppressed. The transition from the pass-band to the stop-band occurs at a specic frequency called the cut-o frequency, fc . A band-pass lter has two cut-o frequencies, fc1 and fc2 as shown in Figure 8.2 . The frequency response of an ideal lter is characterized by an abrupt drop of the voltage gain from unity to zero. As an example, consider Figure 8.3 , which demonstrates the behavior of an ideal lowpass lter. The amplitude spectrum of the input signal consists of harmonics occurring at multiples of the fundamental frequency. Within the pass-band of the lter, the output spectrum is identical to the input spectrum. In the stop-band, the harmonics are completely suppressed.

8.3

Realistic Filters

Realistic lters can not make the abrupt transitions between the pass-band and the stopband shown in Figure 8.2 for ideal lters. Figure 8.4 illustrates the frequency response of a realistic band-pass lter. In this example, we have plotted the power gain, P as a function of frequency, however, it is also possible to plot the voltage gain, Av because the two quantities are related to each other as we have shown in Chapter 6: G = 20 log Av (8.3.1)

We can see that within the pass-band, the power gain is 0 dB and it continually drops as we move away from this range. It is not obvious how we would dene the stop-band in Figure 8.4 because the voltage gain never drops to zero with an abrupt transition as in Figure 8.2 . In designing an amplier, a grand challenge is to keep the voltage gain constant in the desired frequency range. For instance, for audio applications, this range would be from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Obviously, it is desirable to have a xed power gain of 0 dB in the entire pass-band of a lter as in Figure 8.4 . Interestingly however, what happens outside the

202

V
Input Signal Amplitude Spectrum

Hz Av 1
Ideal Low-Pass Filter Frequency Response

0 V

cut-off frequency

Hz

Output Signal Amplitude Spectrum

Hz

Figure 8.3 : With a voltage gain of zero beyond the cut-o frequency an ideal low-pass lter removes all harmonics outside its pass-band.

203

Power Gain (dB)

Pass-Band 0

- 60 Frequency (Hz)

Figure 8.4 : Frequency response of a lter.

Low-Pass Filter

vin (t)

vout (t)

Figure 8.5 : A simple low-pass lter can be created using a capacitor and a resistor. pass-band is more important for lters. Most importantly, it is desirable to have the voltage or power gain to drop as abruptly as possible once we leave the pass-band of the lter. This is the single most important property that determines the complexity and the cost of a lter. We shall return to this subject later when we discuss realistic lters in section 8.3. A simple, inexpensive low-pass lter can be constructed using a resistor and a capacitor as shown in Figure 8.5 . This is a 1st order lter because it employs a single capacitor. The frequency response of the RC lter is given by: Av (f ) = 1 [1 + (2f )2 R2 C 2 ]1/2 (8.3.2)

According to the above equation, the voltage gain can be unity only when f = 0 and it continually decreases at higher frequencies, hence, the frequency response of this lter does not have a pass-band where the voltage gain is unity like the ideal lters shown in Figure 8.2 . Better lters can be constructed by repeating the RC section as illustrated in Figure 8.6 , which shows a fourth order RC lter. The lter order, n is equal to the number of

204

4th order RC low-pass filter

vin (t)

vout (t)

Figure 8.6 : Higher quality RC lters can be constructed by repeating the RC section. The lter shown is a 4th order lter because it has four capacitors. RC sections and the quality improves as the lter order increases. Figure 8.7 shows the frequency responses of three low-pass lters with the same cut-o frequency of 1000 Hz but dierent lter orders of n = 1, 4 and 20. Considering the frequency response of the 1st order lter, we can see that it does not have a very well dened pass-band. We had successfully predicted this behavior above using the equation for its frequency response. On the other hand, the fourth order lter displays a reasonably at pass-band and a relatively abrupt transition into the stop-band. These characteristics further improve when the lter order is raised to twenty approaching the box-like frequency response of an ideal low-pass lter. The responses shown in Figure 8.7 belong to Butterworth type lters. The name comes from its inventor, Stephen Butterworth, a British engineer who described his lter in a paper published in 1930. The voltage gain of an nth order low-pass Butterworth lter is described by Av (f ) = Av (0) 1+
f fc 2n

(8.3.3)

There are other types of lters including Chebychev and Bessel lters also named after their inventors. These lters dier in characteristics such as atness of the pass-band or the abruptness of the roll-o above the cut-o frequency. Among all known lter types, Butterworth lters provide the best atness in the pass-band but they do not have the sharpest transition into the stop-band. All three lters shown in Figure 8.7 have the same cut-o frequency of 1000 Hz. Note that the three curves cross each other at this frequency. How can we dene the cut-o frequency when the transition into the stop-band is gradual as it is the case for the 1st order lter? We need a criterion, which we shall dene later in this chapter. The frequency response of real lters typically plot the power gain as a function of frequency as shown in Figure 8.8 for three Butterworth lters. These are the same lters

205

n=1 n=4 n = 20

Voltage Gain (Av)

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 8.7 : Frequency response of three low-pass lters. The orders of the lters are 1, 4 and 20. All three lters have the same cut-o frequency of 1000 Hz we have shown before in Figure 8.7 . In the new plot, the vertical axis is given in decibels and a logarithmic axis is used for the frequency. A key observation we can make from Figure 8.8 is that transition into the stop-band is linear, which is always the case for realistic lters. In fact, the slope of the lter roll-o is used as one of the key lter specications. The slope has the units of dB/decade, where one decade corresponds to a factor of 10 increase in frequency. This means that if the power gain drops by a certain dB amount from 1 to 10 kHz it will drop by the same amount within the next decade, from 10 to 100 kHz. A lter may also have a positive power gain (i.e. Av > 1) in the pass-band. The treble control on your home stereo is a high-pass lter with zero power gain at the center position of the knob. By turning the knob clockwise or counter-clockwise we can apply positive or negative power gain to the music above the cut-o frequency of the lter.

Example 8.1. Find the lter roll-of in dB/decade for the 1st order RC lter whose frequency
response is shown in Figure 8.8 . Solution: We measure the slope of the straight line in the transition region of the lter. Considering the

206

n=1 n=4 n = 20

Power Gain (dB)

10

20

30

40 1 10 100 1 10

1 10

1 10

1 10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 8.8 : Frequency response of three Butterworth lters (n = 1, 4 and 20) plotted using the logarithmic dB scale. Note that the frequency axis is also logarithmic.
frequency range from 10 to 100 kHz, we measure a drop of 20 dB in power gain. Hence, the lter roll-o is 20 dB/decade.

8.4

Three dB cut-o Frequency

In Figure 8.2 , it was easy to dene the cut-o frequency of an ideal lter. How can we do this when the transition from the pass-band to the stop-band is not so abrupt? We need a criterion or convention: The cut-o frequency of a realistic lter is dened as the frequency at which the output power is reduced to 50% of the input power. Using the denition of power gain, we can show that this corresponds to a power gain (or loss) of G(fc ) = 10 log 1 Pin /2 = 10 log = 3dB Pin 2 (8.4.1)

Since the power gain is negative, the signal is attenuated by 3 dB at the cut-o frequency. It is important to realize that while 3 dB does not appear to be much of an attenuation, it corresponds to losing 50% of the original power at that frequency so it is not negligible, at least electrically! The voltage gain of a butterworth lter is given by equation 8.3.3. Assuming that voltage gain in the pass-band is unity, we can determine the voltage gain at the cut-o frequency as:

207

1 Av (fc ) = 2 Using equation 8.3.1, this corresponds to a power gain of G = 20 log Av (fc ) = 20 log 2 = 3dB in agreement with the denition of the cut-o frequency given above.

(8.4.2)

Example 8.2. Derive an equation for the 3-dB cut-o frequency of the RC lter whose frequency
response is given by equation 8.4.3. Solution: Substituting 8.4.2 in the equation for the lter frequency response we obtain: 1 1 Av = = 2 [1 + (2f )2 R2 C 2 ]1/2 Solving this equation for the frequency, f yields: 1 2RC as the 3-dB cut-o frequency of a rst order RC lter. f3dB = (8.4.3)

8.4.1

Finding the Output Power Spectrum

Now lets look at how we can use this information to obtain the power spectrum of the ltered signal. Using the denition of power gain, the signal power at the lter output can be found as 10 log Pout = 10 log Pin + G which can be written as Pout,dBW = Pin,dBW + G (8.4.5) (8.4.4)

According to this equation, we just add the lter power to the input signal power at the frequency of interest.

208

Example 8.3. The input signal applied to a lter is given by vin = 2 cos(21000t) V . Find the signal power of the output signal in dBW assuming that the lter has a voltage gain of 0.1 at 1000 Hz. Solution: We can solve this problem using two dierent approaches. We shall follow both to demonstrate their equivalency. Since the voltage gain of the lter is 0.1, the amplitude of the output sinusoid has to be 2 V 0.1 = 0.2 V . Also, since the output signal is a perfect sinusoid, its RMS value is given by 2 0.2/ 2 V . The signal power can then be found as P = Vrms = 0.02 W . We can easily convert this value to dBW using PdBW = 10 log(0.02) 17 dBW . Alternatively, we can rst nd the signal power of the input signal and then nd the output power in dBW by adding the power gain at 1000 Hz. The RMS value of the input signal is 2 2 V / 2 = 2 V , which corresponds to a signal power of P = Vrms = 2 W . This yields a signal power PdBW = 10 log(2) 3 dBW . The power gain of the lter can be found from equation ?? as G = 20 log(0.1) = 20 dB. Using equation 8.4.5, we obtain the same output power of -17 dBW.

Example 8.4. Figure 8.9 shows the frequency response of a band-pass lter and the power
spectrum of the input signal applied to its input port. The signal consists of a series of harmonics, which have exactly the same power. The output spectrum shown was simply found by adding the power gain at dierent frequencies to the signal power of the harmonics according to equation 8.4.5. Note that because the vertical axis is logarithmic, it does not have an origin. The power spectrum only shows the harmonics that have a signal power greater than -30 dBW.

8.5

Filtering in Time Domain

So far we have discussed ltering only in the frequency domain. It is important to understand the impact of ltering on the time domain signal. Imagine we apply a square wave to a lowpass lter. Suppose the square wave has a frequency of 1 kHz and the lter has a cut-o frequency of 1.5 kHz. If the lter is ideal, it will only allow the fundamental to pass, hence, the output will be a single sinusoid at the frequency of the square wave. On the other hand, with a realistic lter several more harmonics will pass through the lter with some attenuation. The eect of losing the higher frequency harmonics amounts to losing the sharp features of a signal such as the corners of a square wave.

209

dBW 10 0 -10 -20 -30 G (dB) 0 -10 -20 -30

Input Spectrum

0.5

1.5

2.0

Hz

Frequency Response

0.5

1.5

2.0

Hz

dBW 10 0 -10 -20 -30

Output Spectrum

0.5

1.5

2.0

Hz

Figure 8.9 : If the frequency response is given in decibels, the signal power of the harmonics at the lter output can be readily found by adding the lter power gain to the signal power of the harmonic.

210

8.6

Active Filters

The RC lters we have discussed in the previous section are great when a low-cost design is preferred. An important limitation of the RC lters is that to obtain the desired frequency response, precision resistors and capacitors must be used, which is certainly not an easy task considering the typical tolerances of these elements. Surely, low-tolerance resistors and capacitors are available, but they are considerably more expensive than run-of-the-mill components. Another important limitation of these lters is that it is practically impossible to make the cut-o frequency variable (e.g. by turning a single knob) because changing the cut-o frequency requires changing all of the lter components simultaneously. Active lters were developed to address the above limitations. They are called active because they are electronic circuits requiring an external voltage source. In return, active lters can provide power gain in the pass-band. Another advantage of active lters is that they are very easy to use because they are available as integrated circuits. An example is given in Figure 8.10 , which shows the rst page from the data sheet of a commercial low-pass lter. From the data sheet, we understand that the lter order is eight and it can be congured to simulate both Butterworth and Bessel type low-pass lters. At the lower left corner of the page you can see the circuit diagram illustrating the connections. Note that the IC does not require any external components such as resistors or capacitors. However, it requires a 8V split power supply. The cut-o frequency of the lter is determined by the frequency of a clock signal (i.e. square wave) applied to pin 11. Therefore, we can easily change the cut-o frequency by changing the clock frequency.

211

Figure 8.10 : First page from the data sheet of a commercial active lter.

212

dBW 0 -2 -4 -6 0 dB 0 - 10 - 20 - 30 0 10 20 30 10 20 30

input

amplitudes of 10, 8 and 6 V respectively. a) Find the amplitudes of the harmonics at the lter output; b) Find the total signal power at the lter output in Watts and dBW.

40kHz filter

40kHz

Figure P8.4

Problems
P 8.1 A 10 kHz sinusoidal voltage with an RMS value of 1 V is applied to the input port of a Butterworth lter, which has the cut-o frequency of 10 kHz. Find the signal power at the lter output in Watts. P 8.2 Find the voltage gain at the cut-o frequency of an 8th order Butterworth lowpass lter. Assume Av = 1 at 0 Hz. P 8.3 Given the power spectrum of the lter input signal and the lter frequency response shown in Figure P8.4, nd the signal power at the lter output at 10 kHz. Give your result in Watts. P 8.4 Find the total signal power at the lter output in Figure P8.4. P 8.5 The signal applied to the input port of a rst order Butterworth lter, which has a cut-o frequency of 1000 Hz has the harmonics at 1, 2 and 3 kHz with the

Chapter 9 Transmission and Reception of Radio Signals

In this chapter, we introduce fundamental concepts concerning transmission and reception of radio frequency (RF) signals. The most familiar application of these concepts is that of broadcast radio. Other applications include satellite communication, TV, radar, and cellular telephones. A radio transmitter uses a high frequency sinusoidal signal called the carrier, which carries the information (e.g. voice or music) to be transmitted. The signal to be transmitted modies the carrier in such a way that once the radio signal reaches a radio receiver, the original signal can then be extracted from the carrier. The process of modifying the carrier is called modulation. There are dierent modulation schemes such as amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM) and phase modulation (PM). The process of extracting the information from a modulated signal by a radio receiver is called demodulation. Common consumer radios receive commercial broadcast signals transmitted using amplitude modulation (AM) or frequency modulation (FM). In this chapter, we will learn about AM transmission and reception.

9.1

Modulation

There are two important reasons for using modulation in broadcasting radio signals. The rst reason has to do with the ability to tune our radios to the station of our choice. Suppose we want to set up several radio stations broadcasting audio. As we have seen in earlier chapters, audio signals cover a frequency band from 20 Hz to 20 kHz with an eective bandwidth of about 20 kHz. If all of our stations attempted to broadcast such low frequency signals simultaneously using the same frequency band, the result would be similar to a noisy party where everyone is talking at once. Modulation avoids this problem by mapping the signals from each station to a dierent frequency band. Figure 9.1 illustrates this concept with the 213

214

dBW Station 1 20 kHz dBW Station 2 20 kHz

mo du lat ion

mo dul atio n
dBW

Guard Band

1000

1020 1030

1050

kHz

Figure 9.1 : Two radio stations broadcasting audio signals. Modulation is used to map signals in a low frequency band to a much higher frequency band.

power spectra of the audio signals transmitted by two radio stations. As shown, a dierent frequency band is assigned to each station and these bands are separated by a guard band of unused frequencies to avoid interference. The second reason for using modulation is that if we wanted to broadcast audio signals, the antennas that could eciently convert such low frequencies (audio frequencies) to electromagnetic energy would be kilometers long. This is due to fact that the optimum antenna length is on the order of /2 where is the wavelength of the broadcasted signal. For example, suppose we want to transmit a 20 kHz sinusoid. The wavelength of the signal is, = c 3 108 m/s = = 15, 000m = 15km f 20, 000Hz

where c is the speed of light. A typical antenna needed for this wavelength would then be on the order of /2 = 7.5km which of course is highly impractical. Electromagnetic signals in the radio-frequency (RF) spectrum have frequencies ranging roughly from several hundred kHz to several hundred MHz. These frequencies can be detected using antennas of reasonable lengths. You will study these phenomena in future electromagnetics classes and others on antennas and radio frequency engineering.

215

v1 (t) . v2 (t)

v1 (t)

v2 (t)

Figure 9.2 : An analog multiplier with two input signals.

9.2

Amplitude Modulation

While amplitude modulation may not be the most ecient modulation method, it is still widely used, it is relatively easy to explain and it beautifully demonstrates the essence of transmitting signals in air. Before we begin our discussion on this subject, we need to look at multiplication of periodic signals and learn how to analyze the resulting waveforms in both time and frequency domain. We will begin our discussion with multiplying two sinusoids and later we will extend our scope to more complex waveforms.

9.2.1

Analog Multiplier

A multiplier is an electronic circuit, which produces a signal proportional to the product of two input signals as shown in Figure 9.2 . The output signal of a multiplier can be expressed as vout (t) v1 (t)v2 (t) (9.2.1)

which is a voltage waveform. It is important to note that we have used the proportionality sign to avoid a unit conict between the two sides of the equation. We can also write 9.2.1 as vout (t) = v1 (t)v2 (t) (9.2.2)

where is a constant with a unit of V 1 . In this chapter we will assume that is always unity. Multiplication requires a complex electronic circuit with many transistors, resistors and capacitors. Fortunately, practical multipliers are available in integrated circuit form and they are very easy to use requiring perhaps a few external components.

216

Voltage (V)

0.5 0 0.5 1 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03

Time (s)
Figure 9.3 : Signal obtained by multiplying two sinusoids.

9.2.2

Multiplication of Sinusoids

Lets rst consider the special case of multiplying two sinusoidal waveforms, v1 (t) = A1 cos(2f1 t + 1 ) and v2 (t) = A2 cos(2f2 t + 2 ) The multiplier output signal can be expressed as v1 (t)v2 (t) = A1 A2 cos(2f1 t + 1 ) cos(2f2 t + 2 ) (9.2.3)

Figure 9.3 shows the output signal for f1 = 100 Hz, f2 = 1000 Hz, A1 = A2 = 1 V and 1 = 2 = /3. We can look at this signal as a 1000 Hz sinusoid with a variable amplitude. We can also see that the variations are sinusoidal and occur at the rate of 100 Hz. In other words, we are modulating the amplitude of the 1000 Hz sinusoid with the lower frequency, 100 Hz sinusoid. Thus, the product carries elements of both sinusoids. Multiplication is indeed a form of modulation. To verify that it can indeed accomplish the frequency mapping shown in Figure 9.1 , we have to consider the multiplier output signal in frequency domain. To create the magnitude spectrum of v1 (t)v2 (t), we need to break it down to its individual sinusoidal components. To do this, we can apply the trigonometric identity, 1 1 cos cos = cos( + ) + cos( ) 2 2 (9.2.4)

217

0.5 V

500

1000

Hz

Figure 9.4 : Magnitude spectrum of the signal shown in Figure 9.3 . to equation 9.2.3, which yields, A1 A2 cos[2(f1 + f2 )t + (1 + 2 )] + 2 A1 A2 cos[2(f1 f2 )t + (1 2 )] 2

v1 (t)v2 (t) =

The magnitude spectrum resulting from multiplication of two sinusoids is shown in Figure 9.4 , where we have used the same parameters of the signal shown in Figure 9.3 . As shown, the product consists of two sinusoids one at 900 Hz and the other at 1100 Hz. We also note that the phase information is irrelevant since we have no way of using it in creating the magnitude spectrum. As a second example, lets consider the product of the signals, v1 (t) = 2 cos(2100t) + 3 cos(2200t) and v2 (t) = 10 cos(21000t) The resulting signal is shown in Figure 9.5 . We can see that similar to the previous example, the amplitude of the high frequency sinusoid is modulated by a signal at a lower frequency. The magnitude spectrum of the signal can again be obtained by breaking the product v1 v2 into its sinusoidal components. Applying equation 9.2.4 yields v3 (t) = 10 cos(21100t) + 10 cos(2900t) + 15 cos(21200t) + 15 cos(2800t)

218

60 40

Voltage (V)

20 0 20 40 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03

Time (s)
Figure 9.5 : Product of two signals. The rst signal was obtained by adding two sinusoids at 100 Hz and 200 Hz. The second is a 1000 Hz sinusoid. The magnitude spectra of v1 (t) before multiplication and the signal at the multiplier output are both shown in Figure 9.6 . Similar to the previous example, the multiplier output spectrum consists of peaks centered around 1000 Hz, which happens to be the frequency of the higher frequency sinusoid, v2 (t). We can see in Figure 9.6 that the peaks of the original spectrum are shifted to higher frequencies, which is exactly what we want to do with modulation.We also note that during this process, a mirror image of the spectrum is also created, which can be ltered out if desired. The high frequency sinusoid, v2 is referred to as the carrier signal, vc (t). The low frequency signal is the modulating signal, vm (t) and it can be of any shape consisting of many harmonics in the frequency domain.

9.2.3

Amplitude Modulation (AM)

We have seen in the previous section that multiplication is a form of modulation. In amplitude modulation, the modulating signal, vm (t) is raised to a DC oset, VDC , before it is multiplied with the carrier as shown in Figure ??. The high frequency carrier signal is always the sinusoid, vc (t) = Vc cos(2fc t) while the modulating signal, vm (t) can be music or any other analog signal. The signal at the multiplier output can then be expressed as vam (t) = Vc cos(2fc t)[VDC + vm (t)] (9.2.5)

Suppose we use the signal shown in Figure 9.7 as the modulating signal, vm (t) to modulate

219

3V 2V

500

1000

Hz

15 V 10 V

500

1000

Hz

Figure 9.6 : Product of two signals. The rst signal was obtained by adding two sinusoids at 100 Hz and 200 Hz. The second is a 1000 Hz sinusoid.

20

Voltage (V)

10 0 10 20 0

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

Time (s)
Figure 9.7 : A 100 Hz periodic signal.

220

the carrier sinusoid, 10 cos(22000t). Shown in Figure 9.8 are four dierent AM signals obtained with dierent DC values added to the modulating signal before it is multiplied with the carrier according to 9.2.5. We can see that all four signals have the same envelope identical to the modulating signal shown in Figure 9.7 . The fact that the modulating signal is preserved in this envelope is the only advantage of AM over other modulation methods. Later in this chapter we will see how we can demodulate the AM signal using an envelope detector, which was exactly how the early radios worked. In Figure 9.8 , we can see that the DC oset determines the separation between the upper and lower envelope. Now the question is, can we choose the DC value randomly or is there an optimum value for it? We note that when the DC oset is 4 V, the envelopes are actually butting against each other. Therefore, anything less than 4 V will result in overlapping envelopes, which will then make it impossible to demodulate the signal using an envelope detector. Therefore, the DC oset should be chosen to avoid this undesirable situation. Considering the modulating signal shown in Figure 9.7 , its minimum voltage level is about - 4 V. Hence, by raising the signal to a DC oset of 4 V, we make sure that the signal is always positive before it is multiplied with the carrier sinusoid. The above discussion explains why the DC oset should not be below a certain level. Does this mean that we can choose any DC oset provided it is large enough to preserve the envelope? To answer this question, we need to look at the AM signal in frequency domain.

9.2.4

AM Signal in Frequency Domain

We begin by assuming that the modulating signal is also a sinusoid, hence, the AM signal is given by equation 9.2.5, which can be expanded as vam (t) = (VDC Ac ) cos(2fc t) + Am Ac cos[2(fc + fm )t] + 2 Am Ac cos[2(fc fm )t] 2 using the trigonometric identity in 9.2.4. The signal is composed of three sinusoids. The rst sinusoid is the carrier and it can be shown by a peak at the carrier frequency, fc . The other two sinusoids exist at fc fm and they are referred to as the upper and lower sidebands. To construct the power spectrum, we nd the signal power at each frequency using P = which yields
2 Vrms

Vp = 2

Vp2 = 2

221

200

Voltage (V)

100 0 100 200 0 200

VDC = 10 V

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

Time (s)

Voltage (V)

100 0 100 200 0 200

VDC = 8 V

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

Time (s)

Voltage (V)

100 0 100 200 0 200

VDC = 6 V

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

Time (s)

Voltage (V)

100 0 100 200 0

VDC = 4 V

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

Time (s)
Figure 9.8 : The periodic signal shown in Figure 9.7 is used to modulate the carrier sinusoid, vc (t) = 10 cos(22000t). Plots correspond to modulation using dierent DC osets.

222

volts

fc - fm

fc Frequency (Hz)

fc + fm

Figure 9.9 : Magnitude spectrum of a carrier modulated by a sinusoid of frequency fm .

2

Pcarrier = and

VDC Ac 2

(9.2.6)

Ac Am (9.2.7) 2 2 It is important to note that the DC value only aects the signal power of the carrier given by 9.2.6, which does not carry any information about the original signal. Therefore, it makes sense to use the minimum possible DC oset for the modulating signal. However, as we have seen in the previous section, there exists a minimum acceptable DC level below which, the AM envelope is not identical to the modulating signal. Pupper sideband = Plower sideband =

Example 9.1. The carrier sinusoid, vc (t) = 10 cos(2106 t) V is modulated by the signal 10 cos(2100t) V .
The modulating signal is given a DC oset of 8 V before it is multiplied with the carrier. Find the total power of the signal broadcasted by the radio station. What percentage of this power is used to transmit the carrier? Solution: The AM signal can be found using equation 9.2.5 as vam (t) = 10 cos(2106 t) [8 + 10 cos(2100t)] which can be expanded using 9.2.4 as

223

vam (t) = 80 cos(2106 t) + 50 cos[2(106 + 100)t] + 50 cos[2(106 100)t] The total transmitted power is given by PT = Pcarrier + Pupper sideband + Plower sideband
2 We can nd the signal power of each sinusoid using P = VRM S . This yields,

802 502 502 + + = 3200 + 1250 + 1250 = 5700 W 2 2 2 The percentage of the station power used to broadcast the carrier is given by, PT = 3200 100 = 56.14% 5700 which shows that more than half of the station power is used to broadcast the carrier sinusoid, which does not carry any information about the modulating signal. %=

9.2.5

Modulation Index

Modulation index, m is a measure of the eciency of the modulation. By eciency, we refer to signal power wasted to broadcast the carrier sinusoid. For simplicity, lets assume that the modulating signal is also a sinusoid. The resulting AM signal is shown in Figure 9.10 . The modulation index is dened as m= Vmax Vmin Vmax + Vmin (9.2.8)

where Vmax and Vmin are the maximum and minimum voltage levels of the envelope as illustrated in Figure 9.10 . Modulation index is usually given as a percentage. The above formula is valid for any signal shape. In Figure 9.10 , the minimum acceptable DC value has to be equal to Vm yielding a Vmin level of zero. This results in a modulation index of m = 1 or 100% modulation. From the discussion above, this is the best modulating index we can have since the power wasted on the carrier is minimized. Any DC oset less than this would result in overlapping envelopes and it must be avoided to be able to use an envelope detector to demodulate the signal.

Example 9.2. The AM signal shown in Figure 9.11 was obtained using a DC oset of 5 V. Find
the modulation index if vc (t) = 10 cos(2104 t) V and vm (t) = 3 cos(21000t) V .

224

vam(t)

Vmax Vmin VDC Time

Figure 9.10 : Determining the Modulation Index

Solution: The AM signal is given by, vam (t) = 10 cos(2104 t) [5 + 3 cos(21000t)] The AM signal envelope reaches its maximum voltage level, Vmax when both cosines are equal to unity, hence Vmax = 80 V . The minimum voltage level is reached when the carrier cosine is +1 and the modulating signal cosine is -1. This yields, Vmin = 20 V . The modulation index can be calculated from 9.2.8 as m= 80 20 100 = 60% 80 + 20

9.2.6

Transmission of Non-Sinusoidal Signals

In AM, the carrier signal is always a sinusoid, however, the modulating signal can be of any shape. In this section, our objective is to demonstrate that the method we have learned in the previous section can be extended to complex signals with many harmonics. We begin our discussion by considering a modulating signal consisting of two sinusoids as given below.

225

100

Voltage (V)

50 0 50 100 0 1 2 3 x 10 4
3

Time (s)

Figure 9.11 : The AM signal was obtained by raising the modulating signal, vm (t) = 3 cos(21000t) V to a DC oset of 5 V . The carrier was 10 cos(2104 t)

vm (t) = A1 cos(2f1 t + 1 ) + A2 cos(2f2 t + 2 ) The resulting signal can be expressed as vam (t) = Vc cos(2fc t)[VDC + A1 cos(2f1 t + 1 ) + A2 cos(2f2 t + 2 )] Expanding the above equation using the trigonometric identity in 9.2.4, we can show that the spectrum will consist of peaks at the frequencies of fc , fc f1 and fc f2 . In other words, for every peak in the original signal, we expect to have two new peaks centered around the carrier frequency. It should be clear at this point that no matter how complicated the modulating signal is, it can be broken down to its harmonics and each harmonic results in a peak at fc + fn , where fn is the frequency of the nth harmonic. This way, the entire spectrum can be duplicated in upper and lower sidebands. Figure 9.12 shows spectra of three stations. All three stations broadcast the carrier, upper and lower sidebands.

Example 9.3. An AM station is broadcasting at 1.2 MHz. If a guardband of 20 kHz is left

between two stations, what is the broadcasting frequency of the nearest station broadcasting at a higher frequency? Assume the radio stations are broadcasting audio signals within 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Solution: The broadcasting frequency of the station can be found by sketching the power spectra of the stations as shown in Figure 9.13 . The separation between the frequencies of the two stations can

226

dBW

fc1

fc2

fc3

Figure 9.12 : Three AM Stations

dBW

Guard band

1180

1200

1220

1240

1260

1280 kHz

Figure 9.13 : Power spectra of the radio stations.

be found by adding the upper sideband of the rst station, guardband between the two stations and the lower sideband of the second station as 60 kHz. Since the rst station is operating at 1200 kHz, the next station must have the broadcasting frequency of 1260 kHz.

9.3

AM Demodulation

A simple AM radio can be constructed using a technique called envelope detection. This detector is a simple combination of circuit elements that we have already used, a diode, a resistor and a capacitor. In order to explain how the circuit works, we will consider the circuit in parts. Consider Figure 9.14 , which shows a half wave rectier. The input is the modulated signal received by the antenna and it is shown in Figure 9.15 (a). We know that when a diode is forward biased, current can pass through the diode. However, a small voltage approximately equal to the turn-on voltage drops across the diode. In this application, we shall choose a diode with a small turn-on voltage of approximately 0.2 volts. This voltage is so small that in the following discussion, we shall ignore this small voltage drop and assume that the diode is on if the input signal is positive and o if the input signal is negative. That is, we shall assume that a forward biased diode is just like an ideal switch with zero voltage drop across its terminals. Thus, the positive part of the input signal is replicated exactly, while the negative part is set to zero. The signal across the load resistor is shown in Figure 9.15 (b).

227

+ vam (t) vR (t) -

Figure 9.14 : Half-wave rectier studied in earlier Chapters.

vam(t)

(a)

Time

vR(t)

(b)

Time

Figure 9.15 : a) AM signal and b) half-wave rectied signal

228

+ vam (t) vR (t) -

Figure 9.16 : Half-wave rectier with a lter capacitor. This circuit was called the crystal detector and used by many radio enthusiasts.

vRC(t)

Time

Figure 9.17 : When a capacitor is connected in parallel with the resistor, the output signal is the envelope of the AM signal, which is just the original signal with a DC o-set. Now lets add a capacitor in parallel with the resistor. The resulting circuit is shown in Figure 9.16 . The eect of capacitor on the output signal is shown in Figure 9.17 . During the positive cycle of the input signal the diode turns on and the capacitor charges up with a very short time constant until the input waveform begins to decrease. At this time, the diode turns o and the capacitor discharges through the load resistance according to vL (t) = Vp et/RC where Vp is the peak value of the input signal, and the diode opens at time t = 0. The RC time constant determines the rate at which the capacitor discharges. Hence, the larger the value of capacitance used, the smaller will be the output ripple. We note that in Figure 9.17 , the output signal obtained with the capacitor is very close to the envelope of the AM signal. You can see that the original signal can be obtained from the envelope by ltering out the DC value of the signal. The ripple will inevitably result

229

Cylindrical Shaft

Insulated Wire

Circuit Symbol

Figure 9.18 : a) A typical inductor is constructed by wrapping an insulated wire around a cylindrical shaft, b) circuit symbol of an inductor. in some distortion, however, considering the fact that the frequency of the carrier is much larger than the modulating signal the ripple can be very small.

9.3.1

Inductor and LC Parallel Resonant Circuit

The crystal detector shown in Figure 9.16 does not have the capability to tune to a desired radio station. Consequently, this simple detector receives all AM signals from many dierent stations in the air. To avoid this, each radio has a tuning circuit which enables the receiver to respond to the signal that has the desired carrier frequency. A simple tuning device can be constructed using an inductor and a capacitor. You learned about capacitors and RC circuits in earlier Chapter . In this section, we shall briey review inductors and the principles of an LC parallel resonant circuit. The inductor is a passive element that stores energy in the form of magnetic eld. As shown in Figure 9.18 , a typical inductor consists of a cylindrical shaft with insulated wire wrapped around it. The circuit symbol for the inductor is shown in Figure 9.18 . The voltage, vL (t) across the terminals of an inductor is proportional to the time derivative of the current, iL (t) and is expressed as vL (t) = L diL (t) dt (9.3.1)

where the proportionality constant is called the inductance with units of Henry (H)1 . Recall from Chapter Capacitors and RC circuits that Eq.9.3.1 is very similar to the currentvoltage relationship of a capacitor. The dierence is for a capacitor, current is proportional to the derivative of the voltage.
1

After Joseph Henry, 1797-1878.

230

Similar to capacitors, inductors store energy. While a capacitor stores energy as an electric charge, as mentioned, an inductor stores energy as a magnetic eld. You will learn more about this in a later course on electromagnetics. Energy storage in inductors is associated with the current through the inductor and is given by I2 E=L 2 (9.3.2)

A sudden change in the current through the inductor ( diL /dt ) can cause a large voltage across its terminals. This is used in car ignition systems to make a spark inside the cylinders to ignite the gas-air mixture. In a car, the 12 volts from the battery is converted to 10,000 volts by an inductor, usually called an ignition coil, which creates the spark. By connecting a capacitor in parallel with an inductor, one can form a parallel resonant circuit as shown in Figure 9.19 . Let us assume the capacitor and the inductor are initially at rest, that is, the capacitor has no charge and the inductor has no current. By closing the switch, a current ow is established inside the inductor and the capacitor charges. Now we open the switch again. The sudden open circuit will cause change in the current which will result in a change in voltage because of the relationship of Eq. 9.3.1. The change in voltage will result in a change in current because of the capacitor relationship discussed in earlier Chapters. Without going into details, which will be covered in the rst circuits course, we will state that the energy will oscillate between the capacitor and the inductor. This oscillation is called resonance. When the voltage across the inductor eventually drops to zero (ideally all the stored magnetic eld inside the inductor is transferred to an electric eld inside the capacitor), the capacitor is then discharged through the inductor causing a current ow in the inductor. Eventually all the energy stored in the capacitor is transferred to the inductor and stored in a magnetic eld around the inductor. In an ideal situation where there are no losses in the circuit, the energy exchange between the inductor and the capacitor will go on indenitely. Of course, in a real circuit there is some resistance, which will prevent this. A pendulum is a good mechanical analog for the resonant circuit. The rate at which this energy exchange takes place is the resonance frequency and is a function of the inductance and capacitance values as shown by the following formula: f= 1 2 LC

where f is the resonant frequency of the circuit in Hertz (Hz), L in the inductance in Henry and C is the capacitance in Farad. At the resonant frequency, the parallel LC combination appears as an open circuit, therefore, causing a large voltage to appear across it. A resonant circuit in the diode detector is used to select only one carrier frequency (the one that is equal to LC circuits resonant frequency) among hundreds of signals picked up by the antenna.

231

Figure 9.19 : A parallel LC resonant circuit A note on the properties of an antenna is appropriate here. A real antenna has circuit properties of its own. This is one of the reasons for the eort companies spend in designing special antennas to receive particular signals. If the antenna is not designed correctly, it can change the resonant frequency of the LC tuning circuit. The main parameter that aects the circuit is the length of the antenna wire. The other signicant factor for a single wire antenna is the shape, e.g., helical, loop etc.

Example 9.4. Calculate the resonant frequency of the circuit shown in Figure 9.19 if L = 1H
and C = 1 nF. Solution: The resonant frequency can be found using Eq. 9.3.2 as f= 1 1 = 5M Hz 6 H 109 F 2 10 2 LC

9.4

A Simple AM Receiver (Crystal Detector)

Shown in Figure 9.21 is the diagram of a simple AM receiver (crystal detector). This receiver is an envelope detector preceded by a tuning circuit. The tuning circuit limits the received signal to a narrow band of frequencies that is determined by a capacitor and inductor. The design of Figure 9.21 is basically the same as the early crystal radios. In the original crystal radio patented in 1904, the semiconductor crystal was galena (lead sulde) and the diode was formed by a metal needle contacting the semiconductor crystal, which forms a diode. A

232

crystal radio from the 1920s is shown in Figure 9.20 .

Figure 9.20 : A crystal radio from 1920s. A simple crystal radio consists of four important components. These are, Antenna (to receive the RF signal) LC resonant circuit (to tune to a radio station) Diode (to half-wave rectify the AM signal) RC low-pass lter (to create the AM envelope) The antenna is usually a long wire for AM radio bands and picks up the electromagnetic energy radiated by broadcasting stations. The LC resonant circuit tunes (selects) the desired carrier frequency out of hundreds of frequencies broadcasted by radio stations and rejects unwanted stations. The resonant frequency can be easily varied by using a variable capacitor in the LC circuit. The diode recties the signal and the RC low pass lter removes the high frequency carrier component. The output of the envelope detector can either be connected to a headphone or to an audio amplier for further amplication. The DC value of the AM envelope is also removed during this nal stage.

233

antenna

vam (t) + vRC (t)

Figure 9.21 : Crystal Detector with an LC resonance circuit. This circuit was used to receive AM signals during the early days of radio engineering. Common consumer receivers are much more complicated than a simple crystal detector. The most common receiver today is the superheterodyne receiver, which was invented in 1917 by Edwin Armstrong. The superheterodyne receiver uses several stages of modulation to move the received signal to frequency ranges where more optimal processing can be done, then down to the standard audio range. The modulation to an intermediate frequency (IF) allows the economical use of high precision lters and ampliers2 .

The concepts of modulation and ltering needed for the super heterodyne receiver will be discussed in the junior level signals and systems course and the senior level communications course.

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Problems
P 9.1 Calculate the wavelength of a 100 MHz radio frequency signal (FM Range) in free space. P 9.2 Find the minimum antenna length required to transmit signals in the 600 kHz to 1000 kHz frequency range. P 9.3 Calculate the signal power at the carrier frequency and in the upper and lower sidebands of an AM station with 50% modulation and a total transmitted power of 2 kW. Assume that a sinusoidal test signal is broadcasted. P 9.4 Repeat the previous problem with 80% modulation. P 9.5 A 1 kHz sinusoidal test signal is broadcasted by an AM radio station operating at 1 MHz. The test signal has an amplitude of 1 V. What is the minimum DC oset that must be given to the test signal before it is multiplied with the carrier? P 9.6 Consider a tuning circuit consisting of a 100 H inductor in parallel with a variable capacitor. What should be the capacitance range to be able to tune to the entire AM band (530 kHz to 1650 kHz)? P 9.7 An AM radio station, whose application is limited to broadcasting speech, (e.g. police radios) is operating at a frequency of 500 kHz. Another nearby AM station is operating at a higher frequency and it is broadcasting music as well speech. Recall that we can hear music upto 20000 Hz. On the other hand, speech is typically limited to a frequency range of 5000 Hz. What is the minimum acceptable carrier frequency for the music station if a guard band of 2 kHz is required

between the two stations?

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Answers

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1.1. 0.707 1.2. a) R1 and R2 are in parallel; b) 15 k 1.3. a) R1 and R2 are in parallel; b) 6 k 1.4. a) R1 and R2 , R3 and R5 are in parallel; b) 5 k P 1.5. a) R1 and R2 , R3 and R5 , R4 and R6 are in parallel; b) 3.33 k P 1.6. a) R3 , R4 , R5 and R6 are all in parallel, R1 and R2 are in parallel with a conducting wire, hence they are shorted out; b) 2.5 k P 1.7. 1.14 mA; V1 = 1.14 V , V2 = 2.5 V , V3 = 5.36 V P 1.8. 8.81 V P 1.9. P 1.10. P 1.11. P 1.12. P 1.13. a) 6 V b) -3 V P 1.14. a) b) 1 k c) 3 k P 1.15. V3 P 1.16. R = 3I00 2 V P 1.17. I = 0.81 mA; V1 = 8.1 V ; V2 = 0.9 V P 1.18. P 1.19. 9.2 mA P 1.20. 8.3 k P 1.21. P 1.22. on; 2.1 mA P 1.24. on; 27.6 A P 1.25. P 1.26. on; 7.6 mA P 2.1. P 2.2. P 2.3. P 2.5. P 2.7. P 2.8. P 2.9. P 2.10. P 2.11. P 2.14. P 2.16. P 2.18. P 2.19.

P P P P

P 2.21. P 2.23. P 2.24. P 3.1. Vp = 10 V ; Vpp = 20 V ; VDC = 0 V for all four waveforms. P 3.2. a)f = 100 Hz, T = 0.01 s; b)f = 100 Hz, T = 0.01 s; c) f = 200 Hz, T = 0.05 s; d) f = 100/2 Hz, T = 2/100 s P 3.3. a) 0 V ; b) 20 V ; c) 20 V ; d) 20 V P 3.4. a) 0; b)/4 rad; c)/4 rad; d)/4 rad P 3.9. 100 Hz and 5 V P 4.3. R = 144 . P 4.5. (a) VRM S = VDC = 0 V, VRM S = 10/ 2 V (b) VRM S = VDC = 0 V, VRM S = 10/ 2 V (c) VRM S = VDC = 0 V, VRM S = 10/ 2 V (d) VRM S = VDC = 0 V, VRM S = 10/ 2 V (e) VRM S = VDC = 2 V, VRM S = 54 V (f) VRM S = VDC = 2 V, VRM S = 2 V P 4.11. (a) Vdc = 12 2/ V (b) VRM S = 6 2 V P 4.12. (a) VRM S = 120V (b) IRM S = 1.41 A (c) Power Factor = 1/ 2 (d) Apparent Power = 120. 2 VA (e) Real Power = 120 W. P 4.13. Power Factor = 0.8. P 4.14. (a) Power Factor = 0.707

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(b) Apparent Power = 0.4 VA (c) Real Power = 0.282 W. P 4.15. (a) vL (t) = (10V ) sin(1200t + 6) (b) VRM S = 10/ 2 V,IRM S = 70.7 mA (c) Power Factor = 0 (d) Apparent Power = 0.5 VA (e) Real Power = 0 W. P 4.16. (a) R = 240 (b) P = 30 (3/8 + 1/(4)) W. P 6.1. a) 1.2 V ; b) 1.2/ 2 0.849 V P 6.2. 0.5 W P 6.3. 2.5 W P 6.4. a) 200 W; b) 40 dB P 6.5. 4000 P 6.6. a) 10 kHz; b) 10 kHz; c) 50 kHz and 100 kHz; 0.52% d) P 6.7. a) 12/ 2 V ; b) 0.042 V P 6.8. 7.3 W P 6.9. 1 mA P 7.1. a) inverting, b) - 10 , c)1/ 2 V P 7.2. 1 k P 7.3. a) non-inverting, b) 11 , c) P 7.4. a) - 10, b) none P 7.5. a) - 10, b) none P 7.6. a) i1 = 0, i2 = 0, if = vout /Rf , in = vs /Rn ; b)vout = (Rf /Rn )vs , c) Rn P 7.7. a) 11, b) none, c) Since the current owing into the non-inverting input of the opamp is negligibly small, the input resistance is innitely large regardless of the value of the resistor connected. P 7.8. vout = 4.7v1 1.4v2 P 7.9. V1 = 3.83V ; V2 = 12.68V . P 7.10. 0.75W

P 7.11. P 7.12. P 7.13. P 7.14. P 7.15. P 8.1. P 8.2. P 8.3. P 8.4. P 8.5. P 9.1. P 9.2. P 9.3. P 9.4. P 9.5. P 9.6. P 9.7.

vout = 22vs + 23VDC Rf vout = Rn (v2 v1 ) 6.16W vout = vs R1 dvout R1 +Rf R2 C dt + vout = vs 0.5 W 1/ 2 1W 1.066 W a)7.071 V, 3.578 V, 1.897 V; b) 33.2 W 3m 250 m 1.78 kW and 0.11 kW 1.52 kW and 0.24 kW 1V 93 pF to 0.9 nF 527 kHz