Introduction

• A practical amplifier has a gain of nearly one million i-e the output is nearly
one million times the input.

• Consequently, even a smaller disturbance at the input will appear in the

amplified form in the output.

• Therefore every high gain amplifier tend to give noise along with the signal
in its output.

• The noise in the output of the amplifier is undesirable and must be kept to
as small a level as possible.
Basic Amplifier Block Diagram
Feedback
• The process of injecting a fraction of output energy of some device back to
the input is known as feedback.

• Depending on whether the feedback aids or oppose the input signal, there
are two basic types of feedback in amplifiers.

• Positive feedback
• Negative feedback
Feedback
• Positive Feedback: when the feedback energy (voltage or current) is in
phase with the input signal and thus aids it, it is called positive feedback.
Feedback
Positive Feedback
• The positive feedback increases the gain of the amplifier.

• It has the disadvantage of increased distortions and instability.

• Positive feedback is seldom employed in amplifiers.

• One important use of positive feedback is in oscillators.

Feedback
• Negative Feedback: when the feedback energy (voltage or current) is out of
phase with the input signal and thus opposes it, it is called negative
feedback.
Types of Negative Feedback
Feedback
Negative Feedback
• Negative feedback reduces the gain of the amplifier.

• The advantages of negative feedback are

• Reduction in distortion,
• Stability in gain,
• Increased bandwidth, and
• Improved input and output impedance.

• Due to the reason mentioned above negative feedback is employed in

amplifiers.
Principles of Negative Voltage Feedback in Amplifiers
• A feedback amplifier has two parts an amplifier and a feedback circuit.
• The feedback circuit usually consists of resistors and returns a fraction of
output energy back to the input.
Principles of Negative Voltage Feedback in Amplifiers

Av(op) = Open Loop Gain

Av(cl) = Closed Loop Gain

Principles of Negative Voltage Feedback in Amplifiers
• The following points are worth noting:
1. When negative voltage feedback is employed then gain of the amplifier
reduces.
2. When negative voltage feedback is employed, the voltage actually applied
to the amplifier is extremely small. In this case the signal voltage is 101
mV and the feedback voltage is 100 mV so that the voltage applied at the
input of the amplifier is only 1 mV.
3. In a negative voltage feedback circuit, the feedback fraction mv is always
between 0 and 1.
4. The gain with feedback is called closed-loop gain, while the gain without
feedback is called open-loop gain.
5. It may be noted that negative voltage feedback does not affect the
current gain of the circuit.
 Gain of Negative Voltage Feedback in Amplifiers
• Consider the negative voltage feedback amplifier given below.
Actual input to the amplifier is = eg - mveo

𝑒0
Av =
𝑒𝑔 −𝑚𝑣𝑒𝑜
Example 1
Q. The voltage gain of the amplifier without feedback is 3000. Calculate the
voltage gain of the amplifier if negative feedback is introduced in the circuit.
Given that feedback fraction mv is 0.01.
Example 2
Q. The overall gain of a multistage amplifier is 140. When the negative
voltage feedback is used the gain reduces to 17.5. Find the fraction of output
that is fedback to the input.
Example 3
Q. When the negative feedback voltage is applied to an amplifier of gain 100,
the overall gain falls to 50.
i.) Calculate the fraction of the output fedback voltage.
ii.) If this fraction is maintained, calculate the value of the amplifier gain
required if the overall stage gain is to be 75.
Example 4
Q. The gain of the amplifier without feedback is 50 whereas with negative
voltage feedback the gain falls to 25. If due to ageing, the amplifier gain falls
to 40, find the percentage reduction in the stage gain
(i) Without feedback and
(ii) With negative feedback.
Example 5
Q. An amplifier has a voltage amplification Av = 100 and mv = 0.1. Calculate
the percentage change in the gain of the system if Av falls to 6dB due to
ageing.
Example 6
Q. An amplifier has a voltage gain of 500 without feedback. If a negative
feedback is applied the gain is reduced to 100. Calculate the fraction of the
output voltage feedback. If due to ageing of components, the gain without
feedback falls to 20%, calculate the percentage fall in gain with feedback.
Without negative feedback the change in gain is 20% and with negative feedback the change
in gain is 4.7%. This shows that negative feedback provides voltage gain stability.
Example 7
Q. An amplifier is required with a voltage gain of 100 which does not vary by
more than 1%. If it is to use a negative feedback with a basic amplifier the
voltage gain of which can vary by 20%. Determine the minimum voltage gain
required and feedback factor.
(i)

(ii)
Advantages of Negative Feedback Voltage Amplifiers
1. Gain Stability:- The resultant gain of the amplifier can be made
independent of transistor parameters or the supply voltage variations.
The designer deliberately makes the product Avmv much greater than
unity. Therefore

• It can be seen that the voltage gain now depends only upon the feedback
fraction i.e. on the characteristics of feedback circuit. As the feedback
circuit is the voltage divider circuit, therefore it is unaffected by the change
in temperature, variations in the transistor parameters and frequency.
Hence gain of the amplifier is extremely stable.
Advantages of Negative Feedback Voltage Amplifiers
2. Reduces non-linear distortions:- The negative voltage feedback reduces
non linear distortions in large signal amplifiers.
Advantages of Negative Feedback Voltage Amplifiers
3. Improves the frequency response:- As feedback is usually obtained
through resistive network, therefore voltage gain of the amplifier is
independent of signal frequency. The result is that the voltage gain of the
amplifier is constant over a wide range of frequencies.
4. Increase circuit stability:- If the output of a negative feedback amplifier
increases due to change in temperature or any other reason, this means
more negative feedback since feedback is given from the output. This
tends to oppose the increase in amplification and maintains it stable.
5. Increase the input impedance and decrease the output impedance:-
Amplifier can then serve the purpose of impedance matching.
Advantages of Negative Feedback Voltage Amplifiers
Increase the input impedance
Advantages of Negative Feedback Voltage Amplifiers
Output Impedance

• It can be seen that with negative feedback, the output impedance of the
amplifier is decreased by a factor 1 + Avmv.
• With lower value of output impedance the amplifier is much better suited
to drive low impedance loads.
 Feedback Circuit
• The function of the feedback circuit
is to return a fraction of output
voltage to the input of the amplifier.
• Figure shows feedback circuit of
negative voltage feedback amplifier.
• It is essentially a potential divider
consisting of resistor R1 and R2.
• The output voltage of the amplifier
is fed to this potential divider which
gives feedback voltage to the input.
Example 8
Q. Figure shows negative voltage feedback amplifier. If the gain of the
amplifier without feedback is 10,000 find:
I. Feedback fraction
II. Overall voltage gain
III. Output voltage if input voltage is 1 mV
Example 9
Q. Figure shows negative voltage feedback amplifier. If without feedback Av =
10,000, Zin = 10 KΩ and Zout = 100 Ω, find:
I. Feedback fraction
II. Gain with feedback
III. Input impedance with feedback
IV. Output impedance with feedback
Swamped Amplifiers
Voltage Gain
• When ac emitter current flows
through the unbypassed emitter
resistor RE1 an ac voltage appears
across RE1. This produces negative
feedback.

• The ac voltage across RE1 opposes

the changes in voltage gain. If RE1 >> 10r’e

• The unbybassed ac resistance RE1 is

called the feedback resistor.
Swamped Amplifiers
Input Resistance
• The negative feedback not only stabilizes the voltage gain but also
increases the input resistance.

If RE1 >> r’e

Rin(base) = 𝛽 𝑅𝐸1
Swamped Amplifiers
Less Distortion with Large Signal
• Without feedback resistor the voltage gain with large signal operation
is

• With feedback resistor the voltage gain will be.

• Since r’e is not present, so distortion of large signal has been

eliminated.
Principles of Negative Current Feedback
• In this method a fraction of output current is feedback to the input of the
amplifier.
• In other words the feedback current (If) is proportional to the output
current (Iout) of the amplifier as shown in the figure.
• This circuit is also called current-shunt feedback circuit.
• A feedback resistor (Rf) is connected between the input and output of the
amplifier.
• The amplifier has a current gain of Ai without feedback.
• The input current I1 at the input terminals of the amplifier will appear as AiI1
in the output circuit i-e. Iout = AiI1.
• A fraction mi of this output current is feedback to the input through Rf.
Principles of Negative Current Feedback

• The fact that the arrowhead shows the feed current being fed forward is because it is a
negative feedback.
• Negative current feedback reduces the input current to the amplifier and hence its
current gain.
Current Gain with Negative Current Feedback
Current Gain with Negative Current Feedback
• The current gain of the amplifier without feedback is Ai. When negative
feedback is applied, the current gain is reduced by a factor (1 + miAi).

• The feedback fraction (or current attenuation) has a value between 0 and 1.

• The negative current feedback does not affect the voltage gain of the
amplifier.
Effects of Negative Current Feedback
• The negative current feedback has the following effects on the performance
of the amplifier:
i. Decreases the Input Impedance: The input impedance of the amplifier
decreases by a factor 1 + miAi.
• Negative current feedback decreases the input impedance while negative
voltage feedback increases the input impedance of the amplifier.
Effects of Negative Current Feedback
Effects of Negative Current Feedback
ii. Increases the Output Impedance:

iii. Increases the Bandwidth:

Emitter Follower
• It is a negative current feedback circuit.

• The emitter follower is a current amplifier with a voltage gain of

approximately 1.

• The input voltage is applied between base and emitter and the resulting ac
emitter current produces an output voltage ieRE across the emitter
resistance. This voltage opposes the input voltage, thus providing negative
feedback.

• It is a negative current feedback circuit since the voltage feedback is

proportional to the emitter current.