UNIT – II: Frequency Response

Low-Frequency Response of the CS and CE Amplifiers, Internal Capacitive Effects and the High-
Frequency Model of the MOSFET and the BJT, High-Frequency Response of the CS and CE
Amplifiers, High-Frequency Response of the CG and Cascode Amplifiers, High-Frequency Response
of the Source and Emitter Followers, High-Frequency Response of Differential Amplifiers and
Multistage amplifiers.

LOW FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF CS AMPLIFIER:

Gain falls at low frequency due to effect of coupling capacitors CC1, CC2 and bypass capacitor CC2. the
reactance 1/jɯC of each of the three capacitances increases and the amplifier gain decreases.At midband
frequencies these capacitances have negligibly small impedances and can be assumed to be perfect short.
 Equivalent circuit of CS amplifier at low frequency

we will ignore ro as its effect is minor at low frequency.

The voltage at Gate Vg =

which can be written

the effect of the coupling capacitor CC1 is to introduce a high-pass STC response with a break frequency that
we shall denote
ɯp1=

Drain current is obtained by dividing Vg by source impedance

CS introduces a frequency-dependent factor and he amplifier acquires another break frequency.

we find Vo by first using the current divider rule to determine the fraction of Id that flows through RL,
Then output voltage is

CC2 introduces a third STC high-pass factor, giving the amplifier a third break frequency at

Lower 3 db frequency is

LOE FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF CE AMPLIFIER

Gain falls at low frequency due to effect of coupling capacitors CC1, CC2 and bypass capacitor CE. the
reactance 1/jɯC of each of the three capacitances increases and the amplifier gain decreases.

At midband frequencies these capacitances have negligibly small impedances and can be assumed to be perfect
short.
Fig a) capacitively coupled CE amplifier Fig b) small signal equivalent circuit at low frequency

we shall neglect the effect of ro. To consider the effect of the three capacitors CC1, CE, and CC2 one at a time.
That is, when finding the effect of CC1, we shall assume that CE and CC2 are acting as perfect short circuits,
and when considering CE, we assume that CC1 and CC2 are perfect short circuits, and so on.
We consider effect of Cc1 and assume CE and CC2 replaced with short circuits.
The voltage Vπ at the base of the transistor can be written as

the output voltage is obtained as

These two equations can be combined to obtain the voltage gain including the effect
of CC1 as
Vo / Vsig=
the effect of CC1 is to introduce the frequency-dependent factor with a corner (or break or pole) frequency ɯP1,

we have denoted the midband gain AM,

we consider the effect of CE. For this purpose we assume that CC1 and CC2 are acting as perfect short circuits.
Reflecting re and CE into the base circuit and utilizing the Thévenin theorem enables us to obtain the base
current as

The collector current can then be found as βIb and the output voltage as

CE introduces the STC high-pass factor with a 3-dB frequency equal to the corner (or pole) frequency

we consider the effect of CC2. The circuit with CC1 and CE assumed to be acting as perfect short circuits.

The above two equations are combined to get

CC2 introduces the frequency-dependent factor, with a pole frequency ɯp3

lower 3 db frequency is

INTERNAL CAPCITIVE EFFECTS OF MOSFET.

There are basically two types of internal capacitance in the

MOSFET.
1 The gate capacitive effect: The gate electrode (polysilicon)
forms a parallel-platecapacitor with the channel, with the
oxide layer serving as the capacitor dielectric.
2. The source-body and drain-body depletion-layer
capacitances: These are the capacitances of the reverse-biased
pn junctions formed by the n+ source region (also called the
source diffusion) and the p-type substrate and by the n+ drain
region (the drain diffusion) and the substrate
The Gate Capacitive Effect
The gate capacitive effect can be modeled by the three
capacitances Cgs, Cgd, and Cgb. The values of these
capacitances can be determined as follows:
1. When the MOSFET is operating in the triode region at
small vDS, the channel will be of uniform depth. The
gate-channel capacitance will be WLCox and can be
modelled by dividing it equally between the source and
drain ends.
Cgs= Cgd =WL Cox (triode region)
2.When the MOSFET operates in saturation, the channel has
a tapered shape and is pinched off at or near the drain end. It
can be shown that the gate-to-channel capacitance in this case
is approximately and can be modeled by assigning entire
amount to Cgs, and a zero amount to Cgd (because the
channel is pinched off at
the drain)

2. When the MOSFET is cut off, the channel disappears,

and thus Cgs = Cgd = 0. However,we can (after some
rather complex reasoning) model the gate capacitive
effectby assigning a capacitance WLCox to the gate-body
model capacitance;
4. There is an additional small capacitive component that
should be added to Cgs and Cgd in all the preceding formulas.
The source and drain diffusions extend slightly under the gate
oxide. If the overlap length is denoted Lov, we see that the
overlap capacitance component is

Typically, Lov = 0.05 to 0.1 L.

The Junction Capacitances The depletion-layer capacitances
of the two reverse-biased pn junctions formed between each
of the source and the drain diffusions and the body can be
determined using the formula

where Csb0 is the value of Csb at zero body-source bias, VSB

is the magnitude of the reversebias
voltage, and V0 is the junction built-in voltage (0.6 V to 0.8
V).
Similarly, for the drain diffusion, we have the drain-body
capacitance Cdb,

where Cdb0 is the capacitance value at zero reverse-bias

voltage, and VDB is the magnitude of this reverse-bias voltage
and grading coefficient m=1/2.
High frequency model of MOSFET:
All internal capacitances of MOSFET come into picture at high frequency.
The small-signal model of the MOSFET, including the four capacitances Cgs, Cgd, Csb, and
Cdb. This model can be used to predict the high-frequency response of MOSFET amplifiers.

When source and body are shorted and by neglecting Cdb

To determine the short-circuit current gain, the input is fed with a current-source signal Ii and the output
terminals are short-circuited. The current in the short circuit is given by

Cgd is small, at the frequencies of interest the second term in this equation can be neglected,
Io = gmVgs
we can express Vgs in terms of the input current Ii as

Above two equations can be combined to obtain the short-circuit current gain,
Unity gain frequency (fT)is the frequency at which the short circuit current gain is unity.

INTERNAL CAPACITIVE EFFECYS OF BJT

Actual transistors, however, exhibit charge-storage phenomena that limit the speed and
frequency of their operation. charge-storage effects that take place in the BJT and take them into
account by adding capacitances to the hybrid-π model. to predict the observed dependence of amplifier
gain on frequency, and the time delays that transistor switches and logic gates exhbit.

The Base-Charging or Diffusion Capacitance Cde.

When the transistor is operating in the active mode, minority carrier charge is stored in the base region.
For an npn transistor, the stored electron charge in the base, Qn, can be expressed in terms of the
collector current iC as
Qn= τF Ic

where τF is a device constant with the dimension of time. It is known as the forward base transittime and
represents the average time a charge carrier (electron) spends in crossing the base.small-signal diffusion
Capacitance Cde= τF gm= τF IC/VT

The Base–Emitter Junction Capacitance Cje A change in Vbe not only changes the charge stored in
the base region but also the charge stored in the base–emitter depletion layer. This distinc charge-
storage effect is represented by the EBJ the depletion-layer capacitance CJe is
Cje = 2Cje0
where is the value of at zero EBJ voltage.

The Collector–Base Junction Capacitance Cμ

In active-mode operation, the CBJ is reverse biased, and its junction or depletion capacitance, usually
denoted Cμ, can be found from
Cμ =Cμ0 /(1+VCB/V0)m
where Cμ0 is the value of Cμ at zero voltage; VCB is the magnitude of the CBJ reverse-bias voltage, V0c is
the CBJ built-in voltage (typically, 0.75 V), and m is its grading coefficient (typically, 0.2–0.5).
The High-Frequency Hybrid-π Model of the BJT

We are including capacitive effects at high frequency. Here are two capacitances: the emitter–base
capacitance Cπ = Cde + Cje and the collector–base capacitance Cμ.

a resistor rx to model the resistance of the silicon material of the base region between the base terminal
B and a fictitious internal rx << rπ and its effect is negligible at low frequencies.

By writing KCL
at o/p node
Ic+scµ Vπ=gm Vπ
Collector
current
IC=(gm-SCµ)Vπ-----------------1
Input voltage Vπ=Ib(rπIICπIICµ)
Vπ= Ib(1/(1/rπ +SCπ+SCµ))-----------------2
Where 1/(1/rπ +SCπ+SCµ)) is impedance seen between B’ and E.
From above two equations short circuit current gain=
hfe=IC/IB =((g m−SC µ))/(1/r π + S(C π + C µ))----3
Here g m>> SCµ,by neglecting SCµ
hfe= g mr π /(1+ rπ S(C π +C µ)¿
hfe has a single-pole (or STC) response with a 3-dB frequency at ω = ωβ, where

ωβ =1 /(Cπ + Cμ )rπ
unity gain frequency is the frequency at which short circuit gain is unity.
ωT =gm/( Cπ + Cμ)

unity gain frequency fT =gm /2π (Cπ + Cμ)

1.Find Cde, Cje, Cπ, Cμ, and fT for a BJT operating at a dc collector current IC = 1 mA and a CBJ reverse
bias of 2 V. The device has τF = 20 ps, Cje 0 = 20 fF, Cμ0 = 20 fF, V0e = 0.9 V, V0c = 0.5 V, and CBJm = 0.33.

2.For a BJT operated at IC = 1 mA, determine fT and Cπ if Cμ = 2 pF and h fe = 10 at 50 MHz.

Formulae:

High frequency response of CS amplifier

 Internal capacitances Cgs and Cgd causes gain to fall at high frequency.
 Internal capacitances Cgs and Cgd and input impedance include low pass effect to the the CS
amplifier
 Internal capacitances Cgs, Cgd and Rsig decides the 3db frequency or higher cut off frequency.
 Coupling capacitors and bypass capacitor can be replaced by short circuits at high frequency.
 Input capacitance is increased by a factor (1 + gm RL ′ ) due to miller effect.Ceq=Cgd(1 + gm RL ′ ).

Common Source Amplifier

 Small signal equivalent circuit at high frequency

Thevenin’s equivalent circuit

Thévenin theorem at the input side and by combining the three parallel resistances at the output side.
The resulting simplified circuit is shown above. The midband gain can be found from this circuit by setting
Cgs and Cgd to zero.

Midband gain=AM= Vo /Vsig =[RG /(RG + Rsig)] gmR′ L

At frequencies in the vicinity of fH ,Igd is still much smaller than gmVgs, Vo can be given approximately
by output voltage Vo = -gmVgs RL ′ = –gmRL’ Vgs

Where RL ′ = (ro II RD II RL)

The current Igd =sCgd (Vgs – Vo)

Igd = sCgd (Vgs – (–gmRL’ Vgs))

Igd = sCgd Vgs(1+ gmRL’)

Igd= sVgSCeq where Ceq=Cgd(1+ gmRL’}

Cgd is bridging capacitor connected between circuit nodes gate and drain, whose voltages are related by
a large negative gain (− gmRL ′ ). Cgd is multiplied by is increased by a factor (1 + gm RL ′ ). This effect is
known as the Miller effect, and (1 + gm RL ′ ) is known as the Miller multiplier.we can replace Cgd by an
equivalent capacitance Ceq between the gate and ground as long as Ceq draws a current equal to Igd.

the equivalent circuit with Cgd replaced at the input side with the equivalent capacitance Ceq

Vgs=[Vsig(RG/RG+RSIG)][(1/SCin)/(Rsig+1/SCin)]
Where Cin=Cgs+Cgd(1+ gmRL’)
V0=–gmRL’ Vgs=–gmRL’[Vsig(RG/RG+RSIG)][(1/SCin)/(Rsig+1/SCin)]
V0/ Vsig =–gmRL’ (RG/RG+RSIG)[(1/SCin)/(R’sig+1/SCin)

= AM[(1/SCin)/(R’sig+1/SCin)
Where AM=–gmRL’ (RG/RG+RSIG)

= AM/[1/(S/((1/R’sigCin)+1)
V0/ Vsig = AM/[1/(1+(s/ɯH)]
Where ɯH is upper 3 db frequency= 1 /CinR′sig
ɯH= 1 /CinR′sig
fH=1 /2πCinR′sig
where R′sig= RG II Rsig

1. large value of R’sig will cause decrease in fH.

2 large input capacitance Cin due to miller effect causes decrease in FH.

High frequency response of CE amplifier

 Internal capacitances Cπ and Cµ causes gain to fall at high frequency.
 Internal capacitances Cπ and Cµ and input impedance include low pass effect to the CE amplifier
 Internal capacitances Cπ,Cµ and Rsig decides the 3db frequency or higher cut off frequency.
 Coupling capacitors and bypass capacitor can be replaced by short circuits at high frequency.
 Input capacitance is increased due to miller effect. Cin= Cπ +Cµ (1 + gm RL ′ ).

CE amplifier
Small signal equivalent circuit at high frequency can be obtained by replacing CC1,CC2.CE by short
circuit,dc votage sources by short circuit and dc current sources by open circuit. BJT is replaced by its high

frequency model which includes internal capacitances Cπ and Cµ

The above circuit of Fig.(a) can be simplified by utilizing Thévenin theorem at the input side and by combining
the three parallel resistances at the output side.

fig. (b)

midband gain can be

obtained by setting Cπ
and Cµ to zero.
Am=Vo /Vsig =−Rb/( Rsig+ Rb)rπ /(rπ + rx+( RsigIIRb))(gmRlL)
where RlL is (ro II RLII RC)
 ’
Vo=- gmVπR L
Vπ=V’sigCin(R’sig + Cin)
Vo=-gm Vπ R’L=-gm[V’sig(1/SCin)/(R’sig +(1/S Cin)]R’L
Vo =-gmV’sig/(1+SR’sigCin)=Am/(1+SR’sigCin)

where

1. large value of R’sig will cause decrease in fH.

2 large input capacitance Cin due to miller effect causes decrease in FH.
High-Frequency Response of the CG Amplifier
High cut off frequency of CS and CE amplifiers is low due to large input capacitance due to miller
efeect.
Common gate configuration do not suffer from miller effect and hence wideband operation and high FH.
There is no capacitor between input and output node.
internal capacitances Cgd and Cgs are included.CL is the output capacitance to represent the combination of the
output capacitance of a current-source load and the input capacitance of a succeeding amplifier stage. C L also
includes Cdb. Therefore none of the capacitances undergoes the Miller multiplication effect observed in the CS
stage. It follows that the CG circuit can be designed to have a much wider bandwidth than that of the CS circuit,
especially when the resistance of the signal generator is large. if ro can be neglected. In such case the input side
is isolated from the output side.

We can observe that there are two poles, one at input side and other at output side.
One pole at input side with frequency

the other at the output side with a frequency

fp1 and fp2 are usually much higher than the high cut off frequency the CS
stage.

If ro is taken into account

The resistances Rgs and Rgd seen by Cgs and (Cgd + CL),respectively. By
inspection we obtain

Rgs= Rsig ll Rin

Rgd= RL ll Ro

Where Ro is output resistance of CG amplifier.

Rin is input resistance of CG amplifier.
High frequency response of Source follower(common drian amplifier)
Source follower have voltage gain that is less than but close to unity.
It has large current gain.
It has high input resistance and low output resistance.
It find application as the output stage of a multistage amplifier.
It has excellent high-frequency response.
None of the internal capacitances suffers from the Miller effect.

high-frequency equivalent circuit of a source follower fed with a signal from a source Vsig having a resistance
Rsig. In addition to the MOSFET capacitances Cgs,Cgd and CL a capacitance is included between the output
node and ground to account for the source-to-body capacitance Csb as well as any actual load capacitance.

Midband gain AM and the output resistance Ro, we set all capacitances to zero. The results are
Capacitors Cgd,Cgs and CL include low pass effect to the source follower with
3db frequency (high cutoff frequency) fH

Rgd is the resistance seen by Cgd.and we have to replace both Cgs and CL by
open circuit.

Rgs is the resistance seen by Cgs.and we have to replace both Cgd and CL by
open circuit

RCLis the resistance seen by CL.and we have to replace both Cgd and Cgs by
open circuit
High frequency response of Emitter Follower(common collector amplifier):
Emitter follower have voltage gain that is less than but close to unity.
It has large current gain.
It has high input resistance and low output resistance.
It find application as the output stage of a multistage amplifier.
It has excellent high-frequency response.
None of the internal capacitances suffers from the Miller effect.

high-frequency equivalent circuit of a source follower fed with a signal from a source Vsig having a resistance
Rsig. The resistance RL at the output, includes the output resistance of current source I as well as any actual load
resistance.
Its low-frequency gain,input resistance, and output resistance is identical to source follower.

Emitter follower
 Fig b
the high-frequency equivalent circuit. Lumping ro together with RL and rx together with Rsig making a slight
change in the way the circuit is drawn results in the simplified equivalent circuit shown in fig b.

Output voltage

The end result is

that the 3-dB frequency fH of the emitter follower=

where Rπ and Rµ are resistances seen by Cπ and Cµ respectively.

Ft==1/2πCπre

High-Frequency Response of Differential Amplifiers:

Differential gain and the commonmode gain and CMRR of differential amplifier vary with
frequency.Transistor QS that supplies the bias current I. QS is part of a current mirror.Total
impedance between node S and ground, ZSS. This impedance plays a significant role in
determining the common-mode gain and the CMRR of the differential amplifier.
Resistance RSS is simply the output resistance of current source QS.Capacitance CSS is the total capacitance
between node S and ground and includes Cdb and Cgd of QS, as well as Csb1, and Csb2.
This capacitance can be significant, especially if wide transistors are used for QS, Q1, and Q2.

fig a fig b fig c

Although this circuit has other capacitances, namely Cgs, Cgd, and Cdb of the transistor in addition to other stray
capacitances, we have chosen to show only CSS / 2 in common-mode half-circuit.
In the common mode half circuit CSS/2 with (2RSS) forms a real-axis zero in the common-mode gain function at a
frequency much lower than those of the other poles and zeros of the circuit. This zero then dominates the
frequency dependence of Acm and CMRR.
Consider there is a mismatch in RD between the two drain resistances. The resulting common-mode gain.

the frequency dependence of Acm can be obtained by simply replacing RSS by ZSS.
Where ZSS. is the parallel combination of RSS and Css.
Acm acquires a zero on the negative real axis of the s-plane with frequency.

fZ is much lower than the frequencies of the other poles and zeros. As a result, the common-mode gain increases
at the rate of +6 dB/octave (20 dB/decade) starting at a relatively low frequency.

ω
a)Common mode gain b)differential gain c)CMRR with frequency.

there is a tradeoff between the need to reduce the dc voltage across QS and the need to keep the CMRR
reasonably high at higher frequencies.
ωT =gm/( Cπ + Cμ)
frequency response of multistage amplifier
A transistor circuit containing more than one stage of amplification is known as multistage transistor
amplifier

Name of coupling Name of multistage amplifier

RC coupling R-C coupled amplifier
Transformer coupling Transformer coupled amplifier
Direct coupling Direct coupled amplifier
In RC coupling, a capacitor is used as the coupling device. The capacitor connects the output of one stage to the
input of the next stage in order to pass the a.c. signal on while blocking the d.c. bias voltages.

In transformer coupling, transformer is used as the coupling device. The transformer coupling provides the same
two functions (viz. to pass the signal on and blocking d.c.) but permits in addition impedance matching.

In direct coupling or d.c. coupling, the individual amplifier stage bias conditions are so designed that the two
stages may be directly connected without the necessity for d.c. isolation.

The gain of a multistage amplifier is equal to the product of gains of individual stages. For instance, if G1, G2
and G3 are the individual voltage gains of a three-stage amplifier, then total voltage gain G is given by :
*G = G1 × G2 × G3
Bandwidth. The range of frequency over which the voltage gain is equal to or greater than
*70.7% of the maximum gain is known as bandwidth.

RC Coupled Transistor Amplifier

A coupling capacitor CC is used to connect the output of first stage to the base (i.e. input) of the second stage
and so on. The resistances R1, R2 and RE form the biasing and stabilisation network. The emitter bypass capacitor
offers low reactance path to the signal. Without it, the voltage gain of each stage would be lost. The coupling
capacitor CC transmits a.c. signal but blocks d.c. This prevents d.c. interference between various stages and the
shifting of operating point

Frequency response
vAt low frequencies (< 50 Hz), the reactance of coupling capacitor CC is quite high and hence very small part of
signal will pass from one stage to the next stage .oreover, CE cannot shunt the emitter resistance RE effectively
because of its large reactance at low frequencies.These two factors cause a falling of voltage gain at low
frequencies.

At high frequencies (> 20 kHz), the reactance of CC is very small and it behaves as a short circuit. This
increases the loading effect of next stage and serves to reduce the voltage gain.

At mid-frequencies (50 Hz to 20 kHz), the voltage gain of the amplifier is constant. The effect of coupling
capacitor in this frequency range is such so as to maintain a uniform voltage gain.

Transformer-Coupled Amplifier
The primary P of this transformer is made the collector load and its secondary S gives input to the next stage.No
signal power is lost in the collector or base resistors. No signal power is lost in the collector or base resistors.

When an a.c. signal is applied to the base of first transistor, it appears in the amplified form across primary P of
the coupling transformer. The voltage developed across primary is transferred to the input of the next stage by
the transformer secondary as shown in Fig.
frequency response is rather poor. At low frequencies, the reactance of primary begins to fall, resulting in
decreased gain. At high frequencies, the capacitance between turns of windings acts as a bypass condenser to
reduce the output voltage and hence gain.
Direct-Coupled Amplifier
one stage is directly connected to the next stage without any intervening coupling device. It can be used for
amplifying extremely low frequencies.

High frequency response of cascode amplifier

Common gate amplifier has wide bandwidth,but midband gain is low and input resistance is low.

combining the CG with the CS amplifier in the cascode configuration can result in a circuit having the
high input resistance and high gain of the CS amplifier together with the wide bandwidth of the CG
amplifier. the cascode amplifier exhibits a very high input resistance and a voltage gain that can be as high
asA0 ,where A0 = gmro
2

cascode amplifier with all transistor internal capacitances indicated

capacitance CL at the output node to represent the combination of Cdb2, the output capacitance of a current-source
load, and the input capacitance of a succeeding amplifier stage. Cdb1 and Cgs2 are in parallel.CLand Cgd2
are in parallel. We employ to determining the 3-dB frequency fH is the open-circuit time-constants method:

1. Capacitance Cgs1sees a resistance Rsig .

2. Capacitance Cgd1 sees a resistance Rgd1 , which can be obtained by adapting the formula
in Eq. (9.84) to

Where Rd1 is total resistance at drain D1

3. Capacitance (Cdb1 + Cgs2) sees a resistance Rd1.

4. Capacitance (CL + Cgd2) sees a resistance RL|| R0.
where Ro is given by

the effective time constant H can be computed as

the 3-dB frequency fH as

when Rsig is small, the Miller effect in Q1will not be of concern. when Rsig = 0 and assume that the middle term
is much smaller than the third term.

the 3-dB frequency becomes

the unity-gain frequency is given by