American University of Sharjah

College of Engineering
Department of Electrical Engineering
Electronics 1 (ELE241)

Fall 2016

Class Project: Common Emitter Amplifier

Ameen Awwad 55027

Date : 13th December 2016

Abstract
In this project, we learned how a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) can used to
constract a common emitter voltage Amplifier. In the first part of the project, we designed
the amplifier using the circuit theory laws and BJT special laws for currents. On the other
hand, in the second part, we implemented a simulation for the designed circuit.
Subsequently, in the third part, a hard circuit was constructed in the electronics lab. The
voltage gain (Av) was calculated for both Results showed how much sensitive the amplifier
circuit is to biasing voltages and resistance connected to the terminals of the transistor.

Background
In the world of the electronics, power, voltage and current amplifier. Since we know
that amplifying a certain signal means magnefying its magnituge, the jobs of the previously
mentioned major amplifiers categories should be clear. As the focus of this report is on
voltage amplifiers we will not go deeper in the other devices. Voltage amplifiers use
transistors to amplify the voltage of a signal, where this signal can be either DC or AC. In
order to to do that process, power sorce must be used if we want to ultilize transistors.
Many transistors can be used. However, Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT), though
considered expensive relative to Field Effect Transistors, is usually prefered to construct
the voltage amplifiers since they can achieve higher gain. A BJT device has three terminals:
base, collecter, and emitter. By determinig the voltages of these three terminals one can
control the biasing of the two np-junctions inside the transistor.These two junction form a
system of two bacdk-to-back diodes.
Procedure
Design : Foremost, to design any cicuit that contain a transistor we need to set the baising
of the Emitter-Base Junction (EBJ), forward
biased, and Collecter-Base Junction (CBJ),
1uF

reverse biased. Thus, we need to know the values

1uF

of the resistances R1, R2, RC and RE in the circuit

shown in figure 1:

10uF

Figure 1

We started by assuming:
3

B = 100, IC=1.66mA, R1=13k so that IB = 16.6 mA.

Thus:
Re = Vt / Ic = 25 m/ 1.66 m = 15
Av = - Rc/ Re Rc = 50 * 15 = 750
And Vcc is given to be 10V.
Eventually, the rest of the values where found to be R2 =4.7k, RC =750 and RE =700.

Simulation: In order to check that our design is valid and will provide the needed gain, a
simulation using OrCad Capture CIS was implemented.
First we constructed the cicuit shown below in Figure 2.

Figure 2

The input signals amplitude was set to be 10 mV. As shown in figure 3, Time Domain
Simulation where used:

Figure 3

The graph shown in Figure 4 show input (Vin) and output (Vout) voltages versus time.

Figure 4

Experiment: After finishing the software implementation of the amplifier a hard copy were
costructed in the Electronics Lab using the following equipments:

Resistors : 13k, 4.7k, 750, 680,

Capacitors 1F, 10 F
Transistor: BJT BC 107 (Figure 5).
DMM
Breadboarding Socket
DC Power Supply (0-30V)
Oscilloscope
Function Generator (FG)

Figure 5

First, We constrcuted the circuit shown in Figure 6.

V

cc =10V

Oscilloscope
Channel 2
(CH2)

Vin

Ground

Figure 6

Oscilloscope
Channel 1
(CH1)

Thus, by setting the function generator to almost 100mV at 10kHz, we get the following
graph, Figure 7, from the oscilloscope:

Figure 7

Results:
From the PSpice simulation and using cursors:
Vout p p = 1000.457 mV and
Vinp-p = 2 * 10 = 20 mV
Av th = - Vout p p / Vinp-p = - 50.023 V/V.
This result showed that our design is valid. Thus, we constructed the hard circuit and got
the following gain using the oscilliscope readings :
Vout p p = 5.44 V and

Vin p p = 98.0 mV

Thus, the experimental gain is: Av ex = - 5.44/0.098 = - 55.51 V/V

Discussion
As an evaluation of our work we can find the percentage of error of the experimental gain:
%error = (|Avex Av th | / |Av th | )* 100 = (|-55.51 + 50 | / |-50|) *100 = 11.02%
Although this percentage of error show that our experimental performance is acceptable,
mistakes must exist. Many things could result this percentage of error. One sorce of error is
that we did not use 700 resistor for Re since the lab was out of it. Alternatively, we used
680 . This change in the resistance will cause a change in the biasing of the EBJ junction
of the transistor and thus affect the output voltage. Thus a different gain will be found.
Furthermore, the input voltage has a certain maximum value where the transistor reach
sauration the output will start losing its sinusoidal shape just as shown in figure 8.

Figure 8

Conclusion:

In this project, we learnt the steps should be followed to build a common emmiter
BJT voltage amplifier with a specific gain. These steps can be summerized as design,
simulation (software) and experimentation (harware). We noticed how a slight change in
the resistances at the terminal of the transistor, subsequently a change in the biasing
voltages, can change the function of the circuit. Finally, we noticed that , the input voltage
has a certain maximum value where the transistor reach sauration the output will start
losing its sinusoidal shape.