Application Information (Continued)
assuming free air operation. For the LD package soldered to
a DAP pad that expands to a copper area of 1.0in
2
on a
PCB, the LM4871’s θ
JA
is 56˚C/W. T
JMAX
= 150˚C for the
LM4871. The θ
JA
can be decreased by using some form of
heat sinking. The resultant θ
JA
will be the summation of the
θ
JC
, θCS, and θSA. θJCis the junction to case of the package
(or to the exposed DAP, as is the case with the LD package),
θ
CS
is the case to heat sink thermal resistance and θSAis the
heat sink to ambient thermal resistance. By adding additional copper area around the LM4871, the θ
JA
can be
reduced from its free air value for the SO and MSOP packages. Increasing the copper area around the LD package
from 1.0in
2
to 2.0in2area results in a θJAdecrease to
46˚C/W.Depending on the ambient temperature, T
A
, and the
θ
JA
, Equation 2 can be used to find the maximum internal
power dissipation supported by the IC packaging. If the
result of Equation 1 is greater than that of Equation 2, then
either the supply voltage must be decreased, the load impedance increased, the θ
JA
decreased, or the ambient temperature reduced. For the typical application of a 5V power
supply, with an 8Ω load, and no additional heatsinking, the
maximum ambient temperature possible withoutviolating the
maximum junction temperature is approximately 61˚C provided that device operation is around the maximum power
dissipation point and assuming surface mount packaging.
For the LD package in a typical application of a 5V power
supply, with a 4Ω load, and 1.0in
2
copper area soldered to
the exposed DAP pad, the maximum ambient temperature is
approximately 77˚C providing device operation is around the
maximum power dissipation point. Internal power dissipation
is a function of output power. If typical operation is not
around the maximum power dissipation point, the ambient
temperature can be increased. Refer to the Typical Perfor-
mance Characteristics curves for power dissipation information for different output powers and output loading.
POWER SUPPLY BYPASSING
As with any amplifier, proper supply bypassing is critical for
low noise performance and high power supply rejection. The
capacitor location on both the bypass and power supply pins
should be as close to the LM4871 as possible. The capacitor
connected between the bypass pin and ground improves the
internal bias voltage’s stability, producing improved PSRR.
The improvements to PSRR increase as the bypass pin
capacitor increases. Typical applications employ a 5V regulator with 10µF and a 0.1µF bypass capacitors which aid in
supply stability. This does not eliminate the need for bypassing the supply nodes of the LM4871 with a 1µF tantalum
capacitor.The selection of bypass capacitors, especially C
B
,
is dependent upon PSRR requirements, click and pop performance as explained in the section, Proper Selection of
External Components, system cost, and size constraints.
SHUTDOWN FUNCTION
In order to reduce power consumption while not in use, the
LM4871 contains a shutdown pin to externally turn off the
amplifier’s bias circuitry. This shutdown feature turns the
amplifier off when a logic high is placed on the shutdown pin.
The trigger point between a logic low and logic high level is
typically half- supply. It is best to switch between ground and
supply to provide maximum device performance. By switching the shutdown pin to V
DD
, the LM4871 supply current
draw will be minimized in idle mode. While the device will be
disabled with shutdown pin voltages less then V
DD
, the idle
current may be greater than the typical value of 0.6µA. In
either case, the shutdown pin should be tied to a definite
voltage to avoid unwanted state changes.
In many applications, a microcontroller or microprocessor
output is used to control the shutdown circuitry which provides a quick, smooth transition into shutdown. Another solution is to use a single-pole, single-throw switch in conjunction with an external pull-up resistor. When the switch is
closed, the shutdown pin is connected to ground and enables the amplifier. If the switch is open, then the external
pull-up resistor will disable the LM4871. This scheme guarantees that the shutdown pin will not float thus preventing
unwanted state changes.
PROPER SELECTION OF EXTERNAL COMPONENTS
Proper selection of external components in applications using integrated power amplifiers is critical to optimize device
and system performance. While the LM4871 is tolerant of
external component combinations, consideration to component values must be used to maximize overall system quality.
The LM4871 is unity-gain stable which gives a designer
maximum system flexibility. The LM4871 should be used in
low gain configurations to minimize THD+N values, and
maximize the signal to noise ratio. Low gain configurations
require large input signals to obtain a given output power.
Input signals equal to or greater than 1 Vrms are available
from sources such as audio codecs. Please refer to the
section, Audio Power Amplifier Design, for a more complete explanation of proper gain selection.
Besides gain, one of the major considerations is the closedloop bandwidth of the amplifier. To a large extent, the bandwidth is dictated by the choice of external components
shown in
Figure 1
. The input coupling capacitor, Ci, forms a
first order high pass filter which limits low frequency response. This value should be chosen based on needed
frequency response for a few distinct reasons.
Selection Of Input Capacitor Size
Large input capacitors are both expensive and space hungry
for portable designs. Clearly, a certain sized capacitor is
needed to couple in low frequencies without severe attenuation. But in many cases the speakers used in portable
systems, whether internal or external, have little ability to
reproduce signals below 100Hz to 150Hz. Thus, using a
large input capacitor may not increase actual system performance.
In addition to system cost and size, click and pop performance is effected by the size of the input coupling capacitor,
C
i.
A larger input coupling capacitor requires more charge to
reach its quiescent DC voltage (nominally 1/2 V
DD
). This
charge comes from the output via the feedback and is apt to
create pops upon device enable. Thus, by minimizing the
capacitor size based on necessary low frequency response,
turn-on pops can be minimized.
Besides minimizing the input capacitor size, careful consideration should be paid to the bypass capacitor value. Bypass
capacitor, C
B
, is the most critical component to minimize
turn-on pops since it determines how fast the LM4871 turns
on. The slower the LM4871’s outputs ramp to their quiescent
DC voltage (nominally 1/2 V
DD
), the smaller the turn-on pop.
Choosing C
B
equal to 1.0µF along with a small value of Ci(in
the range of 0.1µF to 0.39µF), should produce a virtually
clickless and popless shutdown function. While the device
will function properly, (no oscillations or motorboating), with
C
B
equal to 0.1µF, the device will be much more susceptible
LM4871
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