Linearized active circuits: transfer functions and stability

We study the properties of electronic circuits after linearization around a fixed operating point in the context of closed-loop stability analysis. When distributed elements, like transmission lines, are present in the circuit it is known that unstable circuits can be created without poles in the complex right half-plane. This undermines existing closed-loop stability analysis techniques that determine stability by looking for right half-plane poles. We observed that the problematic circuits rely on unrealistic elements with an infinite bandwidth. In this paper, we therefore define a class of realistic linearized components and show that a circuit composed of realistic elements is only unstable with poles in the complex right half-plane. Furthermore, we show that the amount of right half-plane poles in a realistic circuit is finite, even when distributed elements are present. In the second part of the paper, we provide examples of component models that are realistic and show that the class includes many existing models, including ones for passive devices, active devices and transmission lines.