© Ahmad El-Banna

INTEGRATED TECHNICAL EDUCATION CLUSTER

AT ALAMEERIA

J-601-1448
Electronic Principals

Lecture #12

JANUARY 2015
Sine wave
oscillators
Instructor:
Dr. Ahmad El-Banna
 J-601-1448 , Lec#12 , Jan 2015 © Ahmad El-Banna
Agenda

Introduction

Feedback Oscillators

Oscillators with RC Feedback Circuits

Oscillators with LC Feedback Circuits

Crystal-Controlled Oscillators 2
INTRODUCTION
3

© Ahmad E l - Banna
 Introduction

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• An oscillator is a circuit that produces a periodic waveform on its
output with only the dc supply voltage as an input.
• The output voltage can be either sinusoidal or non sinusoidal,
depending on the type of oscillator.
• Two major classifications for oscillators are feedback
oscillators and
relaxation oscillators.

o an oscillator converts electrical energy from the

dc power supply to periodic waveforms.

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 © Ahmad E l - Banna
FEEDBACK OSCILLATORS 5
Positive feedback

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• Positive feedback is characterized by
the condition wherein a portion of the
output voltage of an amplifier is fed
back to the input with no net phase
shift, resulting in a reinforcement of
the output signal.

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Conditions for Oscillation

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• Two conditions:

1. The phase shift around the feedback loop must be effectively 0°.

2. The voltage gain, Acl around the closed feedback loop (loop gain) must equal 1 (unity).

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Start-Up Conditions

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• For oscillation to begin, the voltage gain around the positive feedback loop must
be greater than 1 so that the amplitude of the output can build up to a desired
level.

• The gain must then decrease to 1 so that the output stays at the desired level and
oscillation is sustained.

• Initially, a small positive feedback voltage develops from thermally produced

broad-band noise in the resistors or other components or from power supply turn-
on transients.

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 © Ahmad E l - Banna
Wien-bridge oscillator
Phase-shift oscillator
Twin-T oscillator

OSCILLATORS WITH RC 9

FEEDBACK CIRCUITS
The Wien-Bridge Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• Generally, RC feedback oscillators are used for frequencies up to about 1 MHz.
• The Wien-bridge is by far the most widely used type of RC feedback oscillator
for this range of frequencies.

Lead-lag circuit and its response curve

• Basic Circuit

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The Wien-Bridge Oscillator..

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• Positive Feedback Conditions for Oscillation

Acl= 1 + (R1/R2)

choose

• Start-Up Conditions

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 Self-starting Wien-bridge

© Ahmad E l - Banna
oscillator
Using a form of automatic
gain control (AGC)
1- When dc power is first applied,
both zener diodes appear as opens.

2- When the zeners conduct, they short out R3

and Acl = 3

• The zener feedback is simple, it suffers from the

nonlinearity of the zener diodes that occurs in
order to control gain.

• In some older designs, a tungsten lamp was used in

the feed-back circuit to achieve stability.
• A better method to control the gain uses a JFET as a 12
voltage-controlled resistor in a negative feedback path.
• As the voltage increases, the drain-source resistance
increases.
The Phase-Shift Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• Each of the three RC circuits in the feedback loop can
provide a maximum phase shift approaching 90°.
• Oscillation occurs at the frequency where the total
phase shift through the three RC circuits is 180°.
• The inversion of the op-amp itself provides the
additional 180° to meet the requirement for oscillation
of a 360° (or 0°) phase shift around the feedback loop.

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Twin-T Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• One of the twin-T filters has a low-pass response, and the other has a high-pass
response.
• The combined parallel filters produce a band-stop or notch response with a
center frequency equal to the desired frequency of oscillation.

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 © Ahmad E l - Banna
THE COLPITTS 15

OSCILLATOR
Colpitts Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• LC feedback elements are normally used in oscillators that require higher
frequencies of oscillation.
• Also, because of the frequency limitation (lower unity-gain frequency) of most op-
amps, discrete transistors (BJT or FET) are often used as the gain element in LC
oscillators.

• Colpitts oscillator uses an LC circuit in the feedback loop to provide the necessary
phase shift and to act as a resonant filter that passes only the desired frequency
of oscillation.

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 Conditions for Oscillation and Start-Up

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• Loading of the Feedback Circuit
Affects the Frequency of Oscillation
 Zin of the amplifier loads the feed-back  A FET can be used in place of a BJT, as shown in Figure 16–19, to
circuit and lowers its Q, thus lowering the minimize the loading effect of the transistor’s input impedance.
resonant frequency.

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 © Ahmad E l - Banna
THE CLAPP 18

OSCILLATOR
 Clapp Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• The Clapp oscillator is a variation of the
Colpitts with addition of C3.

• Since C1 and C2 are both connected to ground at one end, the junction capacitance
of the transistor and other stray capacitances appear in parallel with C1 and C2 to
ground, altering their effective values.
• C3 is not affected, however, and thus provides a more accurate and stable frequency 19
of oscillation.
 © Ahmad E l - Banna
THE HARTLEY 20

OSCILLATOR
 Hartley Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• The Hartley oscillator is similar to the Colpitts except that the feedback
circuit consists of two series inductors and a parallel capacitor

• Loading of the tank circuit has the same

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effect in the Hartley as in the Colpitts; that
is, the Q is decreased and thus fr decreases.
 © Ahmad E l - Banna
THE ARMSTRONG 22

OSCILLATOR
Armstrong Oscillator

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• This type of LC feedback oscillator uses transformer coupling to feed back a
portion of the signal voltage.
• It is sometimes called a “tickler” oscillator in reference to the transformer
secondary or “tickler coil” that provides the feedback to keep the oscillation
going.
• The Armstrong is less common than the Colpitts, Clapp, and Hartley, mainly
because of the disadvantage of transformer size and cost.

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 © Ahmad E l - Banna
CRYSTAL-CONTROLLED OSCILLATORS 24
Crystal-Controlled Oscillators

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• The most stable and accurate type of feedback oscillator uses a piezoelectric crystal in
the feedback loop to control the frequency.
• Quartz is one type of crystalline substance found in nature that exhibits a property
called the piezoelectric effect.
• When a changing mechanical stress is applied across the crystal to cause it to vibrate,
a voltage develops at the frequency of mechanical vibration.
• Conversely, when an ac voltage is applied across the crystal, it vibrates at the
frequency of the applied voltage.
• The greatest vibration occurs at the crystal’s natural resonant frequency, which is
determined by the physical dimensions and by the way the crystal is cut.

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 Basic crystal oscillators

© Ahmad E l - Banna
• A great advantage of the crystal is that it exhibits a very high Q.
• The impedance of the crystal is minimum at the series resonant frequency, thus
providing maximum feedback.
• a crystal is used as a series resonant tank circuit.
• The crystal tuning capacitor, Cc is used to “fine tune” the oscillator frequency by
“pulling” the resonant frequency of the crystal slightly up or down.

Modes:
• Piezoelectric crystals can oscillate in either
of two modes—fundamental or overtone.
• The fundamental frequency of a crystal is
the lowest frequency at which it is naturally
resonant.
• The fundamental frequency depends on the
crystal’s mechanical dimensions, type of
cut, .. etc.
• Usually it’s less than 20 MHz.
• Overtones are approximate integer 26
multiples of the fundamental frequency.
• Many crystal oscillators are available in
integrated circuit packages.
 J-601-1448 , Lec#12 , Jan 2015 © Ahmad El-Banna
Feedback link: http://
goo.gl/forms/ghjNGxQpaj

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 J-601-1448 , Lec#12 , Jan 2015 © Ahmad E l -Banna
• For more details, refer to:
• Chapter 16 at T. Floyd, Electronic Devices,9th edition.
• http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/oscillator/rc_oscillator.html
• http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/oscillator/oscillators.html
• The lecture is available online at:
• https://speakerdeck.com/ahmad_elbanna
• For inquires, send to:
• [email protected]

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