Gain (electronics)
In electronics, gain is a measure of the ability of a two-port circuit (often an amplifier) to increase the power or amplitude of a signal from the input to the output port[1][2][3][4] by adding energy converted from some power supply to the signal.
It is usually defined as the mean ratio of the signal amplitude or power at the output port to the amplitude or power at the input port.
[4] A gain greater than one (greater than zero dB), that is, amplification, is the defining property of an active device or circuit, while a passive circuit will have a gain of less than one.
[4] In the field of audio and general purpose amplifiers, especially operational amplifiers, the term usually refers to voltage gain,[2] but in radio frequency amplifiers it usually refers to power gain.
Furthermore, the term gain is also applied in systems such as sensors where the input and output have different units; in such cases the gain units must be specified, as in "5 microvolts per photon" for the responsivity of a photosensor.
The "gain" of a bipolar transistor normally refers to forward current transfer ratio, either hFE ("beta", the static ratio of Ic divided by Ib at some operating point), or sometimes hfe (the small-signal current gain, the slope of the graph of Ic against Ib at a point).
The gain of an electronic device or circuit generally varies with the frequency of the applied signal.
Unless otherwise stated, the term refers to the gain for frequencies in the passband, the intended operating frequency range of the equipment.
(mean radiation intensity from a lossless antenna).
Power gain, in decibels (dB), is defined as follows: where
A similar calculation can be done using a natural logarithm instead of a decimal logarithm, resulting in nepers instead of decibels: The power gain can be calculated using voltage instead of power using Joule's first law
are equal, so the above equation can be simplified to: This simplified formula, the 20 log rule, is used to calculate a voltage gain in decibels and is equivalent to a power gain if and only if the impedances at input and output are equal.
, the formula is: In many cases, the input and output impedances are equal, so the above equation can be simplified to: This simplified formula is used to calculate a current gain in decibels and is equivalent to the power gain if and only if the impedances at input and output are equal.
In the cases above, gain will be a dimensionless quantity, as it is the ratio of like units (decibels are not used as units, but rather as a method of indicating a logarithmic relationship).
In the case of other devices, the gain will have a value in SI units.
Such is the case with the operational transconductance amplifier, which has an open-loop gain (transconductance) in siemens (mhos), because the gain is a ratio of the output current to the input voltage.
