LM4880
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SNAS103C –NOVEMBER 1995–REVISED MAY 2013
AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN CIRCUIT
As shown in Figure 3, the LM4880 can be set up to automatically shutdown when a load is not connected. This
circuit is based upon a single control pin common in many headphone jacks. This control pin forms a normally
closed switch with one of the output pins. The output of this circuit (the voltage on pin 5 of the LM4880) has two
states based on the state of the switch. When the switch is open, signifying that headphones are inserted, the
LM4880 should be enabled. When the switch is closed, the LM4880 should be off to minimize power
consumption.
The operation of this circuit is rather simple. With the switch closed, Rpand Roform a resistor divider which
produces a gate voltage of less than 5 mV. This gate voltage keeps the NMOS inverter off and Rsd pulls the
shutdown pin of the LM4880 to the supply voltage. This places the LM4880 in shutdown mode which reduces the
supply current to 0.7 μA typically. When the switch is open, the opposite condition is produced. Resistor Rppulls
the gate of the NMOS high which turns on the inverter and produces a logic low signal on the shutdown pin of
the LM4880. This state enables the LM4880 and places the amplifier in its normal mode of operation.
This type of circuit is clearly valuable in portable products where battery life is critical, but is also beneficial for
power conscious designs such as “Green PC's”.
AUTOMATIC SWITCHING CIRCUIT
A circuit closely related to Automatic Shutdown Circuit is Automatic Switching Circuit.Automatic Switching Circuit
utilizes both the input and output of the NMOS inverter to toggle the states of two different audio power
amplifiers. The LM4880 is used to drive stereo single ended loads, while the LM4861 drives bridged internal
speakers.
In this application, the LM4880 and LM4861 are never on at the same time. When the switch inside the
headphone jack is open, the LM4880 is enabled and the LM4861 is disabled since the NMOS inverter is on. If a
headphone jack is not present, it is assumed that the internal speakers should be on and thus the voltage on the
LM4861 shutdown pin is low and the voltage at the LM4880 pin is high. This results in the LM4880 being
shutdown and the LM4861 being enabled.
Only one channel of this circuit is shown in Figure 4 to keep the drawing simple but the typical application would
a LM4880 driving a stereo external headphone jack and two LM4861's driving the internal stereo speakers. If
only one internal speaker is required, a single LM4861 can be used as a summer to mix the left and right inputs
into a single mono channel.
PROPER SELECTION OF EXTERNAL COMPONENTS
Selection of external components when using integrated power amplifiers is critical to optimize device and
system performance. While the LM4880 is tolerant of external component combinations, care must be exercised
when choosing component values.
The LM4880 is unity-gain stable which gives a designer maximum system flexibility. The LM4880 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 AUDIO POWER AMPLIFIER DESIGN for
a more complete explanation of proper gain selection.
Besides gain, one of the major design considerations is the closed-loop bandwidth of the amplifier. To a large
extent, the bandwidth is dictated by the choice of external components shown in Figure 2. Both the input
coupling capacitor, Ci, and the output coupling capacitor, Co, form first order high pass filters which limit low
frequency response. These values should be chosen based on needed frequency response for a few distinct
reasons.
Selection of Input and Output Capacitor Size
Large input and output 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
transducers used in portable systems, whether internal or external, have little ability to reproduce signals below
100 Hz–150 Hz. Thus using large input and output capacitors may not increase system performance.
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