Impedance reection rules

Andrea Pacelli Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering SUNY at Stony Brook pacelli@ece.sunysb.edu First edition, February 2002 Copyright c 2002 Andrea Pacelli All Rights Reserved In these notes we present a set of so-called impedance reection rules. The name is really misleading. Reection means a change of course, where something goes back to whence it came. Here, no such thing occurs. In the language of optics, we should rather speak of refraction, where an image is magnied or reduced when passing through a lens. This is what happens to the impedance when going through a transistor: It is magnied or reduced, according to the current and voltage gain of the stage under consideration. For example, the base terminal of a BJT carries much less current than the emitter, while sustaining a similar voltage. Correspondingly, an impedance connected to the emitter appears to be magnied when seen from the base. We will examine impedance reection rules for BJTs rst, then for MOSFETs. Although performing similar functions, the two devices differ in that the base current of a BJT is usually nonnegligible, while the gate current of a MOSFET is always zero. Also, MOSFETs display the body effect, which complicates calculations slightly. Finally, the lower transconductance of MOSFETs makes some effects apparent, which are usually negligible for BJTs. As a result, the impedance reection rules for MOSFETs are quite different from those for BJTs.

Bipolar transistors

The bipolar junction transistor has three current-carrying terminals. We will compute the impedance seen from each of them, when a generic load is connected to one of the remaining two terminals, and the other is grounded. The astute reader will gure out that one could construct six possible combinations of that kind. However, it turns out that three of them are not very interesting, so we are left with only three, which we proceed to discuss in the following. 1.1 Magnication of emitter load

Let us consider a BJT with an impedance connected between the emitter and ground, and the collector grounded (Fig. 1a). We want to compute the impedance seen into the

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vx ZE ZE

a)

b)

Figure 1: Large-signal (a) and small-signal (b) ac circuits for impedance reection rule #1.

base. To this purpose we connect a probe source to the base and take the ratio of probe voltage to the probe current . Note that it is irrelevant whether the probe source is a voltage or current source: The result is the same. Replacing the BJT by its hybrid-pi model, we obtain the circuit of Fig. 1b. Note that the output resistance is connected from the emitter to ground, i.e., parallel to . Therefore we can lump it together with into a single impedance

Note that in most cases, , so that . In order to compute the impedance at the base side, we only need one equation relating and . However, the emitter voltage, , is unknown. It is convenient and instructive to use the base-emitter voltage as an unknown, rather than . To relate the two, let us write the KVL for the base-emitter-ground loop:

so that, We now write the KCL for the emitter:

from which we can obtain

The input impedance is now found as

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Figure 2: Large-signal (a) and small-signal (b) ac circuits for impedance reection rule #2.

Eq. (1) is the rst impedance-reection rule:

The impedance seen when looking into the base is the base-emitter resistance , plus times the impedance connected to the emitter. The bipolar transistor is like a magnifying glass for impedances. Whatever is connected when seen through the base. to the emitter appears magnied by 1.2 Reduction of base load

connected between the base Let us now consider the symmetric case of an impedance and ground, where the impedance is measured from the emitter side (Fig. 2a). Replacing again the BJT by a small-signal model, we obtain the circuit of Fig. 2b. Let us start again from computing as a function of . From the partition between and , we obtain immediately

Let us now write the KCL for the emitter:

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and the impedance is

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02 41

from which, substituting

, we obtain

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A

X 

! 1F B P G Q    G B A     Q 9 02 E C @ R B 4 UB A  02 4 ! X  B A  (Y5  4 02 A " F B P

F B P

02 43

or, substituting

A

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ZE ZE ZE

a)

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Figure 3: Large-signal (a), small-signal (b), and simplied small-signal (c) ac circuits for impedance reection rule #3.

The second impedance-reection rule is then: The impedance seen when looking into the emitter is the inverse transconductance , plus the impedance connected to the base divided by . The magnifying glass analogy works also the other way around: When looking into the emitter, impedances connected to the other side appear to be smaller. 1.3 Magnication of output resistance

Let us consider the third and nal case of Fig. 3a, which becomes Fig. 3b for small-signal analysis. Since both and are connected between emitter and ground, we can lump them together in a single obtaining Fig. 3c. The reader will note that the probe current ows through the entire circuit into ground, therefore the current through is also equal to , and the emitter voltage is Since the base is grounded,

We then write the KCL at the collector:

This is the wanted equation that allows us to compute

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or

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Figure 4: Large-signal (a) and small-signal (b) ac circuits for impedance reection rule #4.

Since in most cases

We can summarize the third impedance-reection rule as follows:

MOSFETs

The MOSFET has only two current-carrying terminals, therefore we derive only two impedance-reection rules. One is very similar to the third BJT rule. The other (reduction product. of the drain-side impedance) is peculiar to MOSFETs with their low 2.1 Magnication of output resistance

Let us consider the same circuit of Fig. 3a, but with a MOSFET replacing the BJT (Fig. 4a). The gate is grounded. However, remember that the gate of a MOSFET never carries any dc current. Since we are working at low enough frequencies that the MOSFET can be assumed to be operating at dc, the results would not change even if we connected to the gate. This consideration also applies to the rule in the next a nite resistance section. The two differences with respect to the BJT case are: (a) Resistor is missing, (b) The body-effect transconductance has appeared. The analysis, however, is completely analogous to the case of the BJT. Since the gate current is zero, the source voltage is so that the KCL at the drain becomes

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The emitter degeneration impedance the factor .

boosts the output resistance

by

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, we can simplify the equation:

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Figure 5: Large-signal (a) and small-signal (b) ac circuits for impedance reection rule #5.

from which we obtain the drain-side impedance

or, neglecting

in comparison with

We repeat the summary for preceding result, rewording it in MOSFET terms:

2.2

Reduction of drain load

In this conguration, an element is connected on the drain side, while the impedance is measured at the source side, with the gate grounded (Fig. 5a). Note that for a BJT, according to Eq. (2), the measured impedance is expected to be . However, the lower transconductance of MOSFETs, along with the high load impedances sometimes present, can let the impedance on the drain side contaminate the impedance seen on the source side. Consider for example the case of a drain connected to an ac open circuit (an ideal current source). The drain current is simply constant, because it cannot change. Since the source current is equal and opposite to the drain current, it cannot change either, and the impedance measured at the source side is innite. To analyze the effect, let us consider the small-signal circuit of Fig. 5b. The probe current traverses the transistor and ows into ground through , therefore the drain voltage is The source voltage is

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The source degeneration impedance the factor .

boosts the output resistance

by

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,

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The KCL at the source is

so that the source-side impedance is

We then conclude that

Note that, when is small, the apparent impedance is , consistently with the BJT result. However, when is larger than , the MOSFET works as a reverse magnifying glass, reducing the apparent impedance by a factor of . When , the source-side impedance is also innite. Let us now extend the same rule to bipolars. The reader can verify that, for a BJT, the corresponding impedance reection rule (replacing by ) is

, a value of is recovered, as expected. However, for , , not . Moreover, the product for BJTs is always rather high (at least 500) so that even when , the resulting impedance is usually moderate. On the other hand, for MOSFETs the product can be as low as 10, with resulting high values of emitter-side impedance. That is why the rule for the attenuation of the drain load has a special importance for MOSFETs. In the case of BJTs, this effect must be taken into account only if a very low impedance is desired, and a large load is connected to the collector. The table on the next page summarizes the impedance-reection rules for BJTs and MOSFETs.

A  dH 7 9 

When

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B F  # EC B E GI Q 2 1UrC (F G  2 Q E C B E % U`1C B F

The source-side impedance in the presence of a drain load the sum of and , attenuated by the factor

is equal to .

WG

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 i

and multiplying numerator and denominator by

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,

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MOS

  1DB F E C   7 B   A  H G & V  E C S  WQ A  q% 1DB F " H

E 1C &  F B P X  B F G  G A  Q F B P Q   q%7 B " 

BJT

Load at

C/D B/G E/S E/S

Probe at

C/D

B/G

E/S E/S

Summary of impedance reection rules

E = emitter, B = base, C = collector S = source, G = gate, D = drain