Quick questions on Voltage gain and decibels explained: O-Level Electronics Amplifiers

2short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.

What is calculating gain?

Show answer

To find the gain, divide the output voltage by the input voltage, making sure both are in the same unit first. A small input of

20\ \text{mV}

and an output of

4\ \text{V}

give a gain of

4 / 0.020 = 200

. The same formula rearranges to find the output from the input and gain,

V_{out} = A_v V_{in}

, or the input from the output and gain.

What are gain in decibels?

Show answer

Gains can be enormous, so they are often expressed on a logarithmic scale in decibels (

\text{dB}

). For a voltage gain:

Have a question we have not covered?

This dot-point answer is short enough that we have not extracted many short questions yet. Read the full dot-point answer or ask Mo, our study assistant, in the chat for follow ups.

All ElectronicsQ&A pages