CHAPTER 2: FUNDAMENTALS OF ELECTRONICS

Objectives:
 Solve voltage, current, gain, and attenuation in decibels and apply these formulas in
applications involving cascaded circuits.
 Analyze the basic configuration of the different types of filters that are used in
communication networks
 Calculate bandwidth by using Fourier analysis.

Content:
A. Gain, Attenuation, and Decibels
B. Tuned Circuits
C. Filters
D. Fourier Theory

A. GAIN, ATTENUATION, AND DECIBELS

Most electronic circuits in communication are used to process signals, i.e., to

manipulate signals to produce a desired result. All signal processing circuits involve either
gain or attenuation.

Gain
Gain means amplification. If a signal is applied to a circuit such as the amplifier
shown Fig. 2.1 and the output of the circuit has a greater amplitude than the input signal, the
circuit has gain.

Figure 2.1 An Amplifier

Gain is simply the ratio of the output to the input. For input ( V ¿ ) and output (V out ¿
voltages, voltage gain ( A v ¿ is expressed as follows:
output V out
A v= =
input V¿

Since most amplifiers are also power amplifiers, the same procedure can be used to calculate
power gain A P:
P out
A p=
P¿
where P¿ is the power input and Pout is the power output.

Example:
1. What is the voltage gain of an amplifier that produces an output of 750 mV for a 30 μV
input?
2. The power output of an amplifier is 6 watts (W). The power gain is 80. What is the input
power?
When two or more stages of amplification or other forms of signal processing are
cascaded, the overall gain of the combination is the product of the individual circuit gains.

Figure 2.2 Cascaded Circuits

Fig. 2.2 shows three amplifiers connected one after the other so that the output of one is the
input to the next. The voltage gains of the individual circuits are marked.

To find the total gain of this circuit, simply multiply the individual circuit gains:
AT = A1 x A2 x A3 = 5 x 3 x 4 = 60.

Example:
3. Three cascaded amplifiers have power gains of 5, 2, and 17. The input power is 40 mW.
What is the output power?
4. A two-stage amplifier has an input power of 25 μW and an output power of 1.5 mW. One
stage has a gain of 3. What is the gain of the second stage?

Attenuation
Attenuation refers to a loss introduced by a circuit or component. Many electronic circuits,
sometimes called stages, reduce the amplitude of a signal rather than increase it. If the output
signal is lower in amplitude than the input, the circuit has loss, or attenuation. Like gain,
attenuation is simply the ratio of the output to the input. The letter A is used to represent
attenuation as well as gain:
output V out
Attenuation A= =
input V¿

Circuits that introduce attenuation have a gain that is less than 1. In other words, the output is
some fraction of the input. An example of a simple circuit with attenuation is a voltage divider
such as that shown in Fig. 2.3.
 Figure 2.3 A Voltage Divider

When several circuits with attenuation are cascaded, the total attenuation is, again, the
product of the individual attenuations. The circuit in Fig. 2.4 is an example.

Figure 2.4

The attenuation factors for each circuit are shown. The overall attenuation is:
AT = A1 x A 2 x A3

With the values shown in Fig. 2.4, the overall attenuation is

AT = 0.2 x 0.9 x 0.06 = 0.0108

Given an input of 3 V, the output voltage is

V out =A t V ¿ = 0.0108 (3) = 0.0324

It is common in communication systems and equipment to cascade circuits and

components that have gain and attenuation. For example, loss introduced by a circuit can be
compensated for by adding a stage of amplification that offsets it. An example of this is shown
in Fig. 2.5.
 Figure 2.5 Gain exactly off sets the attenuation

Example:
5. A voltage divider such as that shown in Fig. 2.5 has values of R1 = 10 kΩ and R2 = 470 Ω.
a. What is the attenuation?
b. What amplifier gain would you need to have an overall gain of 2?

Decibels
The gain or loss of a circuit is usually expressed in decibels (dB), a unit of measurement that
was originally created as a way of expressing the hearing response of the human ear to
various sound levels. A decibel is one-tenth of a bel.
The formulas for computing the decibel gain or loss of a circuit are:

V out
dB= 20 log
V¿
I out
dB= 20 log
I¿
P out
dB= 10 log
P¿

Example:
6. An amplifier has an input of 3 mV and an output of 5 V. What is the gain in decibels?
7. A filter has a power input of 50 mW and an output of 2 mW. What is the gain or attenuation
in decibel?

Note that when the circuit has gain, the decibel figure is positive. If the gain is less than 1,
which means that there is an attenuation, the decibel figure is negative.

Now, to calculate the overall gain or attenuation of a circuit or system, you simply add the
decibel gain and attenuation factors of each circuit. An example is shown in Fig. 2.6, where
there are two gain stages and an attenuation block. The overall gain of this circuit is
 Figure 2.6

Antilogs. To calculate the input or output voltage or power, given the decibel gain or
attenuation and the output or input, the antilog is used. The antilog is the number obtained
when the base is raised to the logarithm, which is the exponent:

Pout dB Pout
dB=10 log and =log
P¿ 10 P¿

P out dB P dB
and =antilog =¿ out log −1
P¿ 10 P¿ 10

Example:

8. A power amplifier with a 40-dB gain has an output power of 100 W. What is the input
power?
9. An amplifier has a gain of 60 dB. If the input voltage is 50 μV, what is the output voltage?

dBm. When the gain or attenuation of a circuit is expressed in decibels, implicit is a

comparison between two values, the output and the input. When the ratio is computed, the
units of voltage or power are canceled, making the ratio a dimensionless, or relative, figure.
When you see a decibel value, you really do not know the actual voltage or power values. In
some cases, this is not a problem; in others, it is useful or necessary to know the actual
values involved. When an absolute value is needed, you can use a reference value to
compare any other value. An often used reference level in communication is 1 mW. When a
decibel value is computed by comparing a power value to 1 mW, the result is a value called
the dBm. It is computed with the standard power decibel formula with 1 mW as the
denominator of the ratio:
Pout (W )
dBm=10 log
0.001W

Example:
10. A power amplifier has an input of 90 mV across 10 kΩ. The output is 7.8 V across an 8-Ω
speaker. What is the power gain, in decibels? You must compute the input and output power
levels first.

dBc. This is a decibel gain attenuation figure where the reference is the carrier. The carrier is
the base communication signal, a sine wave that is modulated. Often the amplitude’s
sidebands, spurious or interfering signals, are referenced to the carrier. For example, if the
spurious signal is 1 mW compared to the 10-W carrier, the dBc is
 P signal
dBc=10 log
P carrier
0.001
dBc=10 log =−40
10

B. TUNED CIRCUITS

Virtually all communication equipment contains tuned circuits, circuits made up of

inductors and capacitors that resonate at specific frequencies. In this section, you will review
how to calculate the reactance, resonant frequency, impedance, Q, and bandwidth of series
and parallel resonance circuits.

Reactive Components

All tuned circuits and many filters are made up of inductive and capacitive elements, including
discrete components such as coils and capacitors and the stray and distributed inductance
and capacitance that appear in all electronic circuits. Both coils and capacitors offer an
opposition to alternating current flow known as reactance, which is expressed in ohms (Ω).
Like resistance, reactance is an opposition that directly affects the amount of current in a
circuit. In addition, reactive effects produce a phase shift between the currents and voltages in
a circuit. Capacitance causes the current to lead the applied voltage, whereas inductance
causes the current to lag the applied voltage. Coils and capacitors used together form tuned,
or resonant, circuits.

Capacitors. A capacitor used in an ac circuit continually charges and discharges. A capacitor

tends to oppose voltage changes across it. This translates to an opposition to alternating
current known as capacitive reactance X c. The reactance of a capacitor is inversely
proportional to the value of capacitance C and operating frequency f. It is given by the familiar
expression
1
X c=
2 πfC

Inductors. An inductor, also called a coil or choke, is simply a winding of multiple turns of wire.
When current is passed through a coil, a magnetic field is produced around the coil. If the
applied voltage and current are varying, the magnetic field alternately expands and collapses.
This causes a voltage to be self-induced into the coil winding, which has the effect of
opposing current changes in the coil. This effect is known as inductance.
The basic unit of inductance is the henry (H). Inductance is directly affected by the physical
characteristics of the coil, including the number of turns of wire in the inductor, the spacing of
the turns, the length of the coil, the diameter of the coil, and the type of magnetic core
material. Practical inductance values are in the millihenry (mH = 1 x 10− 3 H), microhenry (μH
−6 −9
¿ 1 x 10 H), and nanohenry (nH ¿ 1 x 10 H) regions.
In a dc circuit, an inductor will have little or no effect. Only the ohmic resistance of the wire
affects current flow. However, when the current changes, such as during the time the power is
turned off or on, the coil will oppose these changes in current. When an inductor is used in an
ac circuit, this opposition becomes continuous and constant and is known as inductive
reactance. Inductive reactance X C is expressed in ohms and is calculated by using the
expression
X L =2 πfL

Any wire or conductor exhibits a characteristic inductance. The longer the wire, the greater
the inductance. Although the inductance of a straight wire is only a fraction of a microhenry, at
very high frequencies the reactance can be significant. For this reason, it is important to keep
all lead lengths short in interconnecting components in RF circuits. This is especially true of
capacitor and transistor leads, since stray or distributed inductance can significantly affect the
performance and characteristics of a circuit. Another important characteristic of an inductor is
its quality factor Q, the ratio of inductive power to resistive power:

2
I XL X L 2 πfL
Q= 2
= =
I R R R

This is the ratio of the power returned to the circuit to the power actually dissipated by the coil
resistance. For example, the Q of a 3-μH inductor with a total resistance of 45ohms at 90
MHz is calculated as follows:

Resistors. At low frequencies, a standard low-wattage color-coded resistor offers nearly pure

resistance, but at high frequencies its leads have considerable inductance, and stray
capacitance between the leads causes the resistor to act as a complex RLC circuit. To
minimize the inductive and capacitive effects, the leads are kept very short in radio
applications.

Many resistors are made from a carbon-composition material in powdered form sealed inside
a tiny housing to which leads are attached. The type and amount of carbon material
determine the value of these resistors. They contribute noise to the circuit in which they are
used. The noise is caused by thermal effects and the granular nature of the resistance
material. The noise contributed by such resistors in an amplifier used to amplify very low level
radio signals may be so high as to obliterate the desired signal.

To overcome this problem, film resistors were developed. They are made by depositing a
carbon or metal film in spiral form on a ceramic form. The size of the spiral and the kind of
metal film determine the resistance value. Carbon film resistors are quieter than carbon-
composition resistors, and metal film resistors are quieter than carbon film resistors. Metal
film resistors should be used in amplifier circuits that must deal with very low level RF signals.
Most surface-mount resistors are of the metallic film type.

Skin Effect. The resistance of any wire conductor, whether it is a resistor or capacitor lead or
the wire in an inductor, is primarily determined by the ohmic resistance of the wire itself.
However, other factors influence it. The most significant one is skin effect, the tendency of
electrons flowing in a conductor to flow near and on the outer surface of the conductor
frequencies in the VHF, UHF, and microwave regions. This has the effect of greatly
decreasing the total cross-sectional area of the conductor, thus increasing its resistance and
significantly affecting the performance of the circuit in which the conductor is used.

Tuned Circuits and Resonance

A tuned circuit is made up of inductance and capacitance and resonates at a specific

frequency, the resonant frequency. In general, the terms tuned circuit and resonant circuit are
used interchangeably. Because tuned circuits are frequency-selective, they respond best at
their resonant frequency and at a narrow range of frequencies around the resonant
frequency.

Series Resonant Circuits. A series resonant circuit is made up of inductance, capacitance,

and resistance. Such circuits are often referred to as LCR circuits or RLC circuits. The
inductive and capacitive reactances depend upon the frequency of the applied voltage.
Resonance occurs when the inductive and capacitive reactances are equal.

The total impedance of the circuit is given by the expression

Z=√ R 2+( X L − X C )²

When X L equals X C , they cancel each other, leaving only the resistance of the circuit to
oppose the current. At resonance, the total circuit impedance is simply the value of all series
resistances in the circuit. This includes the resistance of the coil and the resistance of the
component leads, as well as any physical resistor in the circuit. The resonant frequency can
be expressed in terms of inductance and capacitance. A formula for resonant frequency can
be easily derived. First, express X L and X C as an equivalence: X L = X C . Since
1
X L =2 π f r L and X c=
2 π frC

1 1
2π fr L = , f r=
2 π f rC 2 π √ LC
The basic resonant frequency formula can be rearranged to solve for either inductance and
capacitance as follows:
1 1
L= and C=
4 π ² f ²C 4 π²f ² L

Example:
11. What is the resonant frequency of a 2.7-pF capacitor and a 33-nH inductor?
12. What value of inductance will resonate with a 12-pF capacitor at 49 MHz?

As indicated earlier, the basic definition of resonance in a series tuned circuit is the point at
which XL equals XC. With this condition, only the resistance of the circuit impedes the
current. The total circuit impedance at resonance is Z = R. For this reason, resonance in a
series tuned circuit can also be defined as the point at which the circuit impedance is lowest
and the circuit current is highest. Since the circuit is resistive at resonance, the current is in
phase with the applied voltage. Above the resonant frequency, the inductive reactance is
higher than the capacitive reactance, and the inductor voltage drop is greater than the
capacitor voltage drop. Therefore, the circuit is inductive, and the current will lag the applied
voltage. Below resonance, the capacitive reactance is higher than the inductive reactance;
the net reactance is capacitive, thereby producing a leading current in the circuit. The
capacitor voltage drop is higher than the inductor voltage drop. The narrow frequency range
over which the current is highest is called the bandwidth. This area is illustrated in Fig. 2.7.

Figure 2.7 Bandwidth of a series resonant circuit

The upper and lower boundaries of the bandwidth are defined by two cutoff frequencies
designated f 1 and f 2 . These cutoff frequencies occur where the current amplitude is 70.7
percent of the peak current. The bandwidth BW of the tuned circuit is defined as the
difference between the upper and lower cutoff frequencies:
BW =f 2 − f 1

Q is the ratio of the inductive reactance to the total circuit resistance, which includes the
resistance of the inductor plus any additional series resistance:
XL
Q=
RT
Bandwidth is then computed as:
 fr
BW =
Q
Since the bandwidth is approximately centered on the resonant frequency, f 1 is the same
distance from f r as f 2 is from f r . This fact allows you to calculate the resonant frequency
by knowing only the cutoff frequencies:
f r= √ f 1 x f 2

For a linear frequency scale, you can calculate the center or resonant frequency by using an
average of the cutoff frequencies.
f 1+ f 2
f r=
2
The cutoff frequencies can be calculated if the bandwidth and the resonant frequency are
known:
BW BW
f 1=f r − and f 2=f r +
2 2
Example:
13. What is the bandwidth of a resonant circuit with a frequency of 28 MHz and a Q of 70?
14. The upper and lower cutoff frequencies of a resonant circuit are found to be 8.07 and 7.93
MHz. Calculate (a) the bandwidth, (b) the approximate resonant frequency, and (c) Q.
15. What are the approximate 3-dB down frequencies of a resonant circuit with a Q of 200 at
16 MHz?

Figure 2.8 Resonant step-up voltage in a series resonant circuit

When the reactances, the resistances, and the current are known, the voltage drops across
each component can be computed:

As you can see, the voltage drops across the inductor and capacitor are significantly higher
than the applied voltage. This is known as the resonant step-up voltage. The resonant step-
up voltage across the coil or capacitor can be easily computed by multiplying the input or
source voltage by Q:
V L=V C =Q V s

Example:
16. A series resonant circuit has a Q of 150 at 3.5 MHz. The applied voltage is 3 μV. What is
the voltage across the capacitor?
Parallel Resonant Circuits. A parallel resonant circuit is formed when the inductor and
capacitor are connected in parallel with the applied voltage, as shown in Fig. 2.9 (a). In
general, resonance in a parallel tuned circuit can also be defined as the point at which the
inductive and capacitive reactances are equal. The resonant frequency is therefore calculated
by the resonant frequency formula given earlier. If we assume lossless components in the
circuit (no resistance), then the current in the inductor equals the current in the capacitor:
I L =I C

Figure 2. 9 Parallel resonant circuit currents. (a) Parallel resonant circuit. (b) Current
relationships in parallel resonant circuit

At resonance, a parallel tuned circuit appears to have infinite resistance, draws no current
from the source and thus has infinite impedance, and acts as an open circuit. However, there
is a high circulating current between the inductor and capacitor. Energy is being stored and
transferred between the inductor and capacitor. Because such a circuit acts as a kind of
storage vessel for electric energy, it is often referred to as a tank circuit and the circulating
current is referred to as the tank current.

At resonance, where X L = X C , the impedance of the inductive branch of the circuit is higher
than the impedance of the capacitive branch because of the coil resistance. The capacitive
current is slightly higher than the inductive current. Even if the reactances are equal, the
branch currents will be unequal and therefore there will be some net current flow in the supply
line. The source current will lead the supply voltage. Nevertheless, the inductive and
capacitive currents in most cases will cancel because they are approximately equal and of
opposite phase, and consequently the line or source current will be significantly lower than
the individual branch currents. The result is a very high resistive impedance, approximately
equal to:
Vs
Z=
IT
The equivalent inductance Leq and resistance Req are calculated with the formulas:
L(Q ²+ 1)
Leq = and Req =Rw ¿)
Q²
and Q is determined by the formula
XL
Q=
RW
where RW is the coil winding resistance.

If Q is high, usually more than 10, Leq is approximately equal to the actual inductance value L.
The total impedance of the circuit at resonance is equal to the equivalent parallel resistance:
Z=Req
If the Q of the parallel resonant circuit is greater than 10, the following simplified formula can
be used to calculate the resistive impedance at resonance:
L
Z=
C Rw

Example:
17. What is the impedance of a parallel LC circuit with a resonant frequency of 52 MHz and a
Q of 12? L = 0.15 μH.
18. Calculate the impedance of the circuit given in Example 17 by using the formula Z = L/CR.

At the resonant frequency, the impedance of the circuit peaks. This means that the line
current at that time is at its minimum. At resonance, the circuit appears to have a very high
resistance, and the small line current is in phase with the applied voltage. Note that the Q of a
parallel circuit, which was previously expressed as Q = X L/ Rw can also be computed with
the expression
RP
Q=
XL

where R P is the equivalent parallel resistance, Req in parallel with any other parallel
resistance, and X L is the inductive reactance of the equivalent inductance Leq. You can set
the bandwidth of a parallel tuned circuit by controlling Q. The Q can be determined by
connecting an external resistor across the circuit. This has the effect of lowering R P and
increasing the bandwidth.

Example:
19. What value of parallel resistor is needed to set the bandwidth of a parallel tuned circuit to
1 MHz? Assume X L = 300 V, RW = 10 Ω, and f r = 10 MHz.