6

Si nusoidal Osci I lators

6.1 lntroduction

Oscillators operate by applying positive feedback so that a noise signal or

small existing oscillation is repeatedly amplified until it becomes a large
continuous oscillation. One of the important problems about using such a
device as a source of sinusoidal waves is that once oscillations are established
the loop gain has to be maintained at unity, or else the amplitude will grow
until saturation effects cause gross distortion of the waveform. Hence a
separate (negative) feedback loop has to be incorporated to stabilize the
amplitude of oscillation. This is commonly achieved with the aid of a
thermistor with a negative temperature coefficient of resistance.

6.2 Phase-shift oscillators

There are various types of sinusoidal oscillator. Perhaps the most obvious
circuit employs an inverting amplifier and a 180' phase-shift network. A
moment's thought will show that this requires more than two R-C circuits
in cascade, or else a 180' phase-shift cannot be attained. Clearly, a 3-stage
R-C network (Figure 6.1) will in principle suffice. However, there is a slight
complication in that such a network is necessarily an attenuator, so the
amplifier it is used with must have suflicient gain to bring the loop gain back
to unity. We can estimate the required gain as follows. First assume that a
single R-C stage is to give a phase-shift of 60', so that:

(6.1)
^/(#):tan6o":lt
82
Sinusoidal Oscillators 83

Fig. 6.1 Three-stage R-C phase-shift network.

Then its attenuation factor* will be:

.: (#)'] " (#): u + (o,cR)2r,t2: + ef t¡,1,r, -, (6.2)

[^'. I
11

This indicates that the attenuation factor for a 3-stage R-C circuit will be
approximately 8. This result is approximate since each R-C stage loads the
previous stage: in fact the true result is that the overall attenuation factor
for 180'phase-shift is 29 (an exact calculation is left as an exercise for the
reader). However, we can improve matters by using a 4-stage R-c network,
in which case:

:tan45':'t (6.3)
^/(#)
and the basic attenuation factor is then:

r:,/z (6.4)

This suggests that the overall attenuation factor will be approximately 4: in

fact, an exact calculation shows that the overall attenuation factor is actually
18.4 - a very signilicant improvement on the result for the 3-stage network.
Although a 3-stage R-c network can be made to work satisfactorily, and
a 4-stage R-C network should give a more practically useful oscillator, more
often a slightly different strategy is adopted, and a non-inverting amplifier
is used instead of an inverting amplifier. In this case a network with zero
phase-shift is required. The well-known Wien bridge network (Figure 6.2)
is suited to this type of application. we now analyse the wien bridge circuit.
For convenience we take the special case where the two resistors and the

* Attenuation factor L is dehned as the inverse of gain G. Thus any attenuating network has
L2l, and G4l.
84 Electronics, Noise and Signal Recovery

Fig.6.2 Wien bridge R-C phase-shift network.

two capacitors are equal. Then

?: *z: (^ .#) . (^
"#)/(^ "#)]
: (**¡,.)'/[^ .
#-(**i,')-']
jaCR
:
[(1 +jorCR)2 +ja¡CR]
jotCR
t1- (o¡CR)z +3jo{R)
-'
I
^ jtl - (a¡cR)'ll (6.5)
t a¡CR )
Clearly, this gives zero phase-shift for ruoCR:1,

i.e.

a:UCR (6.6)

At that frequency we have:

u"f ur:lf3 (6.7)

so there is an attenuation factor of 3 - considerably lower than for the 3- or

4-stage R-C networks - and most amplifiers will be able to provide the voltage
gain of 3 that is necessary to sustain oscillations.
Sinusoidal Oscillators 85

Another advantage of the Wien bridge oscillator is that varying the

frequency of oscillation requires fewer components to be varied in unison.
Typically, two resistors can be ganged together and adjusted, by factors in
the range 10-50: greater variations in frequency can be achieved by switching
in alternative pairs of capacitors - thereby permitting operation over many
decades in frequency.
The Wien bridge oscillator is thus able to act as a very useful source of
sinusoidal oscillations at frequencies up to - 1 MHz where stray capacitances
and inductances start to become important. Instead of trying to eliminate
such stray reactances, a better strategy for these higher frequencies is to make
use of them, or at least to incorporate them into tuned circuits constructed
using lumped inductors and capacitors. Then oscillators can be built which
will operate satisfactorily up to - 10e Hz, higher frequencies than this being
obtainable using tuned microwave cavities (see Appendix C). However, space
does not permit us to delve into a study of high-frequency tuned oscillators
here.

6.3 Practical phase-shift oscillator circuits

Now let us return to the problem of building a non-inverting amplifier. A

neat solution to this problem - and'one which maps well to use of a wien
bridge-is the long-tail pair amplifier, used with single-ended output. Another
possibility is the ring-of-three circuit described earlier. Figures 6.3 and 6.4

Fig. 6.3 Wien bridge oscillator using long-tail pair.

86 Electronics, Noise and Signal Recovery

Y.

Fig. 6.4 Wien bridge oscillator using ring-of-three amplifier. In this circuit the
resistors marked R and capacitors marked C are intended to control the frequency
of oscillation: other capacitors should therefore have relatively large values so they
do not substantially affect the phase of the waveform. Making R¡ a thermistor with
a negative temperature coeflicient of resistance helps to stabilize the amplitude of
oscillation.

show practical circuits constructed in this way. The latter circuit includes a
negative feedback loop incorporating a thermistor with a negative tempera-
ture coeffrcient of resistance to stabilize amplitude of oscillation. Note that
for amplitudes less than the operating amplitude, the loop gain of the
oscillator is greater than unity, but it gradually drops to unity as the operating
amplitude is approached. The degree of amplitude stabilization provided by
the thermistor is more accidental than designed: hence an overt amplitude
stabilization feedback loop is to be preferred. This may be achieved by
rneasuring the signal amplitude in a separate circuit, and then feeding back
the amplitude information to a linear device with variable voltage-controlled
amplification. Fortunately, a junction FET can be used as a voltage-
controlled resistor (VCR): for this purpose it is operated in its ohmic
region - well away from the saturation region that is used in FET-based
ampliliers (Figure 6.5). In the ohmic region the FET current-voltage
characteristic is not exactly linear, but it can be linearized by means of a
simple feedback circuit (Figure 6.6). Figure 6.6 also shows the extra
components needed to control gain in an oscillator or other circuit, and
Figure 6.7 shows how a complete oscillator is controlled in this way. Note
the need for a time-constant to provide amplitude stabilization over many
cycles of the a.c. waveform.
Sinusoidal Oscillators 87

Fig. 6.5 FET as a voltage-controlled resistor. Here a FET is used as a

voltage-controlled resistor (VCR):in conjunction with the resistor R, the FET is able
to produce electronically controllable attenuation of the a.c. input voltage ut.

Fig. 6.6 Li¡earized version of FET voltage-controlled resistor. This linearized

version of the circuit of Figure 6.5 employs negative feedback to cancel out the
second-order Vu,2 ferm from the FET conductance.

Fig. 6.7 Use of FET VCR to control the gain in an oscillator. This diagram shows
in block form the circuit of an amplitude-stabilized feedback oscillafor. A buffer
amplifier is used to feed the rectiflrer diode so that the oscillator output is not unduly
loaded and distorted. For clarity, the FET VCR is not the linearized form of the
circuit. Note that d.c. level-shifting circuits will be required if the FET is to be properly
(i.e. negatively) biased. For ampliflrer notation, see Figures 7.3 and 7.4.
88 Electronics, Noise and Signal Recovery

To analyse the circuit of Figure 6.6 we can proceed to write down the five
equations governing its operation, namely:

I ux (21 u""Vu,lvr)l(1 + Vs"l Ve) - Yd"lzvel (6.8)

V"-Vs":1"R. (6.e)

V6"- Vr": IrRr (6.10)

Ir: -1" (6.11)

It:Ia*It (6.12)

We can then solve these to find how /, depends on V" &nd V6s, and proceed
to minimize the term in Vu"2. However, it is useful to adopt a more intuitive
approach. First, the resistor chain R" + Rr provides a constant contribution
to the conductance, and so we have to examine the FET for any contributions
which vary with Vu.. Second, the resistor chain R" + Rr acts as a potential
divider, giving a modified voltage at the gate, equal to:

Vr" : (V"R¡ * I/d"R")/(R" + Rr) (6.13)

This has two effects, one being to introduce a further V¿"2 contribution to
Iu, via the existing %. term (see equation 6.8), and the second being to
attenuate the control voltage by the factor Rr/(R"*Rr).We now attend to
the first of these effects. If the two 7o.2 contributions are to cancel out, we
must have:

(6.14)
vp 2vo

2R": (R" + Rr), i.e. R":Rr (6.1s)

Thus, the nonJinearity is completely eliminated by making these two resistors

equal. However, this has not been achieved without cost, since the control
voltage has been cut down by the factor Rr/(R" + Rr): 1/2. Fortunately, the
FET has high input impedance, and so the value of R"+R, can be raised to
- MO: thus the parallel conductance of the resistor chain results in no
1
significant further loss in effectiveness of the circuit.
Finally, it is worth remarking that the FET does not need to carry any
d.c. current, and the drain circuit can be isolated from the signal line by a
suitable blocking capacitor. This can give the resulting VCR circuit an odd
appearance, but in fact it is useful in giving the designer additional freedom
to fit the VCR into the remainder of the system.
Sinusoidal Oscillators 89

6.4 Summary

This chapter has examined how oscillators are constructed by the action of
positive feedback. For operation at moderate frequencies (up to -ltrlIJzl
use of R-C phase-shift networks provides a useful strategy. With an inverting
amplifier, a 180' phase-shift network is required, and with a non-inverting
amplifier, a 0' phase-shifter is needed. 3- or 4-stage R-c networks giving
180' phase-shift attenuate signals excessively, and hence the simpler
Wien-bridge 0" phase-shift network with an attenuation factor of 3 is much
more convenient to use.
The chapter has also examined the amplitude of oscillation, and has shown
that to avoid distortion a feedback amplitude-control loop is required. This
may simply use a thermistor, or else (in more sophisticated designs) it may
employ a voltage-controlled resistor (vcR) fed with a d.c. voltage from a
rectified version of the original a.c. oscillation. This is a case where the FET
comes into its own, since it can act as a highly effective vCR, and the latter
operates even more effectively if linearized by a carefully adjusted local
feedback loop. Note that the resulting circuit then has two negative feedback
loops and one positive feedback loop, though the concepts involved are not
at all difficult to understand.

6.5 Bibliography

For more detail on the topics of this chapter, the reader is again referred to
Calvert and McCausland (1978), Horowitz and Hill (1989) and Watson
(1989). Martin and Stephenson (1973) cover the theory of a number of types
of oscillator, including both l.f. (e.g. phase-shift) and r.f. (e.g. Colpitts) types
of circuit.

6.6 Problems

1. Derive a formula for the attenuation of a 3-stage R-c circuit, and confirm
that when the overall phase change is 180', a:llu/6CR, and the
attenuation factor is 29.
2. Give a specification for the thermistor to be used in the oscillator circuit
of Figure 6.4. (e.g. what value should it have, what should the tolerance
on this value be, what should its temperature coeflicient of resistance be,
and to what extent do the values of these parameters depend on each
other?)