Usually targeted at audio applications, these circuit blocks find homes in all types of designs. Here’s a quick study of their operation and properties. Two of the most often used amplifier building ...

Last time on Circuit VR, we looked at creating a very simple common emitter amplifier, but we didn’t talk about how to select the capacitor values, or much about why we wanted them. We are going to ...

The circuit in Figure 1 sinks a constant current (ICE3) through Q3’s collector and emitter. This design is balanced so changes in Q3’s base-emitter voltage (VBE) don’t affect the current sink’s ...

Sometimes I wish FETs had become practical before bipolar transistors. A FET is a lot more like a tube and amplifies voltages. Bipolar transistors amplify current and that makes them a bit harder to ...

Figure 1 The addition of a simple diode in the emitter circuit yields the symmetric waveform in Figure 4. Figure 2 This amplifier circuit produces the distorted waveform in Figure 3. Diode D 1 ...