Heuristic methodologies for the analysis and design of low-distortion bipolar amplifiers

This work contains a discussion of symbolic analysis techniques, symbolic and numerical analysis results, and loosely structured analog design methodologies that one can use in the development of high frequency, low distortion bipolar amplifiers.;Central to this purpose is the development of simplified, yet informative symbolic expressions for harmonic distortion by applying power and Volterra series expansions. Instead of analyzing complete and complex amplifiers, critical bipolar amplifier subcircuits are examined to provide design-oriented insight into the root causes of distortion. In each case we determine low frequency distortion, and where it is most appropriate, frequency dependent distortion.;We also address common and uncommon distortion reduction schemes like global feedback, bootstrapping, and feedforward error correction.