TWO STAGE RC COUPLED

AMPLIFIERS

By,
Madan H R
Department of ECE,
RVCE, Bengaluru

 In this, resistances and capacitances are used

to couple one transistor stage to the other
the signal developed across RC of the
first stage is coupled to the base of the
second stage through the capacitor CC
The coupling capacitor blocks the DC voltage
reaching the second stage
Some loss of the signal voltage always occurs due to the drop across the
coupling capacitor
This loss will be happen when the frequency of the input signal is low and This is the
main drawback of this method
But, if we are interested in amplifying a.c signals of f>10Hz, this type of coupling is the
best solution
The most convenient and the least expensive way to build a multi-stage amplifier
When a.c signal is applied to the base of the first transistor, it appears in
the amplified form across its collector load R C
The amplified signal across RC base of the next stage, further amplified by the
second stage, and the overall gain is considerably increased.

Gain and frequency response

Here, total gain less than the product of the gains of individual stages

Because, when the second stage is made to follow the first stage, the effective load
resistance of the first stage is reduced due to the shunting effect of the input
resistance of the second stage. This reduces the total gain
It is clear that voltage gain drops off at low (<50Hz)
and high (>20KHz) frequencies whereas it is uniform
over mid-frequency range (50Hz to 20KHZ)

At low frequencies,
the reactance of coupling capacitor CC is quite high and hence very small part of the
signal will pass from one stage to the next stage
The 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,
the reactance of coupling capacitor CC is small and behaves as short circuit.
This reduces the voltage gain.
At high frequency, capacitive reactance of base emitter junction is low which
increases the base current
This reduces the current amplification factor. Due to this the voltage drops off at high
frequency.

At mid frequencies,
the voltage gain of the amplifier is constant
The effect of coupling in this frequency range is such as to maintain a uniform
voltage gain.
As the frequency increase in this range, reactance of CC decreases which tends to
increase the gain
Lower reactance means higher loading of first stage and hence lower gain
These

factors

almost

cancel each other, resulting in a uniform gain at mid

frequency
The RC-coupled amplifiers have excellent audio fidelity over a wide range of
frequency

 they are widely used as voltage amplifiers.

They are not used at final stage, because of its poor impedance matching.

In RC-coupled amplifiers:
The various stages are DC isolated. This feature facilitates the biasing of individual
stages.
The various stages can be similar. Hence the design of the amplifier is simplified.
The coupling capacitors influence the responses of the amplifier.
A great number of biasing resistors is necessary.

Advantages, disadvantages and applications

Excellent frequency response, Low cost due to RC

coupling and Circuit is very simpler
Has low voltage and power gain, Behaves noisy with
age and poor impedance matching
Used as voltage amplifier in public addressing
systems.

1.

Problems

Calculate suitable resistor value for the CE amplifier shown, given R L = 120K, VCC
= 24V