Miller Effect - Effects

Effects

As most amplifiers are inverting (i.e. ), the effective capacitance at their inputs is increased due to the Miller effect. This can lower the bandwidth of the amplifier, reducing its range of operation to lower frequencies. The tiny junction and stray capacitances between the base and collector terminals of a Darlington transistor, for example, may be drastically increased by the Miller effects due to its high gain, lowering the high frequency response of the device.

It is also important to note that the Miller capacitance is the capacitance seen looking into the input. If looking for all of the RC time constants (poles) it is important to include as well the capacitance seen by the output. The capacitance on the output is often neglected since it sees and amplifier outputs are typically low impedance. However if the amplifier has a high impedance output, such as if a gain stage is also the output stage, then this RC can have a significant impact on the performance of the amplifier. This is when pole splitting techniques are used.

The Miller effect may also be exploited to synthesize larger capacitors from smaller ones. One such example is in the stabilization of feedback amplifiers, where the required capacitance may be too large to practically include in the circuit. This may be particularly important in the design of integrated circuit, where capacitors can consume significant area, increasing costs.