ANALYSIS

The second experiment is all about cascaded amplifiers. An amplifier is

an electronic device that introduces gain in the circuit. It increases the
amplitude of input signal. It does this by taking energy from a power supply
and controlling the output to match the input signal shape but with larger
amplitude. However, in a case where the input signal is too small, like if the
signal is coming from a microphone or from an antenna, the gain of a singlestage small-signal amplifier is not enough. This is when cascading several
amplifiers becomes necessary.
A cascaded amplifier is any network with two ports constructed from a
series of amplifiers, where each amplifier sends its output to the input of the
next amplifier to form a chain.
A multistage amplifier improves the
overall gain of the circuit. Each stage enhances the signal, thus, the signal
becomes larger and larger as it goes through several stages of a cascaded
amplifier. The collective gain of a cascaded amplifier is equivalent to the
product of individual gains of each amplifier stage.
This experiment will demonstrate three possible methods of linking
the ac signals between two amplifiers in cascade.

Direct Coupling Amplifier (DC Amplifier)

This is a type of amplifier in which the output of one stage of the
amplifier is coupled to the input of the next stage in such a way
as to permit signals with zero frequency, also referred to as
direct current, to pass from input to output.
RC Coupling
This is the most widely used method of coupling in multistage
amplifiers. In this case the resistance is the resistor connected at
the collector terminal and the capacitor is connected in between
the amplifiers. It is also called a blocking capacitor, since it will
block DC voltage.
Transformer Coupling
In this technique, the ac signal in the primary winding induces a
voltage across the secondary winding. The primary and
secondary windings are connected to the output of the first stage
and input of the second stage respectively.

This experiment has also shown that the gain of an amplifier differs
when it has no load, when it has a load and when it has bypass to ground.

The objectives of this experiment are:

To become familiarized with the circuit of direct-coupled, rc-coupled

and transformer-coupled cascaded amplifiers.
To verify the proper biasing of transistors before applying any ac input
signal.
To know what coupling method provides dc isolation between stages.
To compute the ac voltage gain of each amplifier stage.
To calculate the overall ac voltage gain of a multistage amplifier.
To recognize the effect of loading to the ac voltage gain of a cascaded
amplifier.
To determine the result of bypassing to the ac voltage gain of a
multistage amplifier.

The first part of this experiment worked on direct-coupled amplifier. A

circuit was connected for the DC operation using the Direct-Coupled
Amplifier circuit board. The operating supply voltage was measured and
recorded. The potentiometer was then adjusted for a Q1 collector voltage of
13.40 V. Then all the other terminal voltages were recorded.
For the AC operation of the Direct-Coupled amplifier, the ac signal was
connected to the circuit. There were three parts for analysis:

Unloaded the circuit was connected as is.

Loaded a load resistance R9 was connected at the output of the
transistor Q2.
Bypassed with load a capacitor was connected parallel to the resistor
at the emitter terminal, bypassing it, and directly connecting it to the
ground.

Based on the results, connecting a load to the output decreased the

output voltage of the circuit, but bypassing the resistance at the emitter
increased the output voltage significantly.
The same procedure was done for the RC-coupled Amplifier and the
Transformer-coupled Amplifier.
For the RC-coupled Amplifier, it is noticeable that the first and second
stages are similar if they are isolated. The results also show that their
terminal dc voltages have approximately equal values.
Similar results were obtained for the RC-coupled and Transformercoupled amplifier when loaded and bypassed.

CONCLUSION

For the direct-coupled amplifier, there is no component in between the

first and second stages of the circuit. For the RC-coupled amplifier, a
capacitor is in between the two stages. For the transformer-coupled
amplifier, a transformer is connected in between.
The RC-coupled amplifier is the coupling technique that provides
isolation between the two terminals since the two stages had similar
terminal dc voltages.
To compute for the ac voltage gain of each amplifier stage, divide the
output voltage of a stage by the input voltage of the same stage.
To calculate the overall ac voltage gain of a multistage amplifier,
multiply the voltage gain of each stage with each other. This is the
same as dividing the output voltage of the last stage by the input
voltage of the first stage.
Connecting a load to the circuit decreases the ac voltage gain of a
cascaded amplifier
Bypassing the resistor directly connected to the ground increases the
ac voltage gain of a multistage amplifier.