使用PE29102的D类音频.pdfVIP

Class D Audio Using the PE29102 Application Note 72 Summary The objective of this application note is to provide pSemi customers with a general overview of Class D audio techniques as well as to show how one or two PE29102 gallium nitride field effect transistor (GaN FET) drivers may be used to each drive a pair of GaN FET devices for audio applications. Introduction Class D audio amplifiers were first proposed as far back as the 1950s, though it is only relatively recently that their implementation has become increasingly commonplace. Semiconductor technology has finally come of age to meet the performance levels Class D is capable of, many decades after its conception. This is because, until GaN FETs were introduced circa 2008, most metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices were either too slow or had finite “on” resistance of an order that limited their uses for high-power, fast and reliable designs. The great benefit of Class D is efficiency, and achieving efficiency requires using switching devices with high specifi- cations in terms of both low loss and switching speed. In the Class D mode of operation, the transistors are not used in their linear (triode) mode but are used instead as switches: either fully saturated or cut-off. This way, they dissipate very little heat as there is either minimum voltage or minimum current present across each device in either extreme state. The “D” in Class D is sometimes said to stand for “digital”. This is not correct because the operation of the Class D amplifier is based on analog principles, and there is no digital coding of the signal. Pulse Width Modulation In its basic form, an audio signal is fed into a fast comparator, whose other input is referenced to a free-running, highly linear ramp or triangle waveform of ultrasonic frequency (that is to say, the frequency of the ramp/triangle wave must be at least two times higher than that of the highest frequency in the sampled input audio signal). The