Negative-feedback amplifier

A negative-feedback amplifier (or feedback amplifier) is an electronic amplifier that subtracts a fraction of its output from its input, so that negative feedback opposes the original signal. The applied negative feedback can improve its performance (gain stability, linearity, frequency response, step response) and reduces sensitivity to parameter variations due to manufacturing or environment. Because of these advantages, many amplifiers and control systems use negative feedback.

An idealized negative-feedback amplifier as shown in the diagram is a system of three elements (see Figure 1):

Fundamentally, all electronic devices that provide power gain (e.g., vacuum tubes, bipolar transistors, MOS transistors) are nonlinear. Negative feedback trades gain for higher linearity (reducing distortion) and can provide other benefits. If not designed correctly, amplifiers with negative feedback can under some circumstances become unstable due to the feedback becoming positive, resulting in unwanted behavior such as oscillation. The Nyquist stability criterion developed by Harry Nyquist of Bell Laboratories is used to study the stability of feedback amplifiers.

Feedback amplifiers share these properties:

Pros:

Cons:

Harold Stephen Black invented the negative-feedback amplifier while he was a passenger on the Lackawanna Ferry (from Hoboken Terminal to Manhattan) on his way to work at Bell Laboratories (located in Manhattan instead of New Jersey in 1927) on August 2, 1927 (US patent 2,102,671, issued in 1937). Black was working on reducing distortion in repeater amplifiers used for telephone transmission. On a blank space in his copy of The New York Times, he recorded the diagram found in Figure 1 and the equations derived below. On August 8, 1928, Black submitted his invention to the U. S. Patent Office, which took more than 9 years to issue the patent. Black later wrote: "One reason for the delay was that the concept was so contrary to established beliefs that the Patent Office initially did not believe it would work."

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