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voltage in, current out) or as a voltage amplifier (voltage in, voltage out). The common emitter or source amplifier may be viewed as a transconductance amplifier ( i.e. When larger multi-stage amplifiers are assembled, both types of transistors are often interspersed with each other.įigure 9.2: Basic n-type inverting voltage amplifier circuit (neglecting biasing details) The same basic amplifier stages can just as easily be implemented using p-type transistors (PNP, PMOS). In this chapter we will primarily be using n-type transistors (NPN, NMOS) in the example circuits. The remaining terminal is what is thus common to both input and output. The easiest way to determine if a device is connected as common emitter/source, common collector/drain, or common base/gate is to examine where the input signal enters and the output signal leaves.
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This leads to the names common emitter, etc. This means one of the transistor terminals must be common to both the input and output circuits. Representing the basic amplifier as a two port network as in figure 9.1, there would need to be two input and two output terminals for a total of four. The transistor, as we have seen in the previous chapter, is a three-terminal device.
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