1.6 OSCILLATORS

Oscillators are of two types—sinusoidal and relaxation oscillators. Sinusoidal oscillators generate sinusoidal signals whereas relaxation oscillators generate an output whose amplitude changes abruptly like in sweep generators and multivibrators that we will discuss later.

A sinusoidal oscillator is essentially a feedback oscillator in which the Barkhausen condition, 1+Aβ = 0, is satisfied. The Barkhausen condition has an amplitude condition and a phase condition.

  1. |Aβ| ≥ 1 is the amplitude condition, i.e., for oscillations to build up, initially Aβ is greater than 1; and Aβ = 1 when the amplitude reaches a predetermined level.
  2. The overall phase shift the signal (noise is input to the amplifier as vs = 0) undergoes as it passes ...

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