Application Information (Continued)
However, a direct consequence of the increased power de-
livered to the load by a bridge amplifier is higher internal
power dissipation for the same conditions.
The LM4835 has two operational amplifiers per channel. The
maximum internal power dissipation per channel operating in
the bridge mode is four times that of a single-ended ampli-
fier. From Equation (3), assuming a 5V power supply and a
4
load, the maximum single channel power dissipation is
1.27W or 2.54W for stereo operation.
P
DMAX =4 * (VDD)
2/(2
π2R
L)
Bridge Mode
(3)
The LM4835’s power dissipation is twice that given by Equa-
tion (2) or Equation (3) when operating in the single-ended
mode or bridge mode, respectively. Twice the maximum
power dissipation point given by Equation (3) must not ex-
ceed the power dissipation given by Equation (4):
P
DMAX'=(TJMAX TA)/θJA
(4)
The LM4835’s T
JMAX = 150C. In the LQ package soldered
to a DAP pad that expands to a copper area of 5in
2 on a
PCB, the LM4835’s
θ
JA is 20C/W. In the MTE package
soldered to a DAP pad that expands to a copper area of 2in
2
on a PCB, the LM4835’s
θ
JA is 41C/W. At any given ambient
temperature T
A, use Equation (4) to find the maximum inter-
nal power dissipation supported by the IC packaging. Rear-
ranging Equation (4) and substituting P
DMAX for PDMAX' re-
sults in Equation (5). This equation gives the maximum
ambient temperature that still allows maximum stereo power
dissipation without violating the LM4835’s maximum junction
temperature.
T
A =TJMAX – 2*PDMAX θJA
(5)
For a typical application with a 5V power supply and an 4
load, the maximum ambient temperature that allows maxi-
mum stereo power dissipation without exceeding the maxi-
mum junction temperature is approximately 99C for the LQ
package and 45C for the MTE package.
T
JMAX =PDMAX θJA +TA
(6)
Equation (6) gives the maximum junction temperature
T
JMAX. If the result violates the LM4835’s 150C, reduce the
maximum junction temperature by reducing the power sup-
ply voltage or increasing the load resistance. Further allow-
ance should be made for increased ambient temperatures.
The above examples assume that a device is a surface
mount part operating around the maximum power dissipation
point. Since internal power dissipation is a function of output
power, higher ambient temperatures are allowed as output
power or duty cycle decreases.
If the result of Equation (2) is greater than that of Equation
(3), then decrease the supply voltage, increase the load
impedance, or reduce the ambient temperature. If these
measures are insufficient, a heat sink can be added to
reduce
θ
JA. The heat sink can be created using additional
copper area around the package, with connections to the
ground pin(s), supply pin and amplifier output pins. External,
solder attached SMT heatsinks such as the Thermalloy
7106D can also improve power dissipation. When adding a
heat sink, the
θ
JA is the sum of θJC, θCS, and θSA.(θJC is the
junction-to-case thermal impedance,
θ
CS is the case-to-sink
thermal impedance, and
θ
SA is the sink-to-ambient thermal
impedance.) Refer to the Typical Performance Character-
istics curves for power dissipation information at lower out-
put power levels.
POWER SUPPLY BYPASSING
As with any power amplifier, proper supply bypassing is
critical for low noise performance and high power supply
rejection. Applications that employ a 5V regulator typically
use a 10 F in parallel with a 0.1 F filter capacitors to
stabilize the regulator’s output, reduce noise on the supply
line, and improve the supply’s transient response. However,
their presence does not eliminate the need for a local 1.0 F
tantalum bypass capacitance connected between the
LM4835’s supply pins and ground. Do not substitute a ce-
ramic capacitor for the tantalum. Doing so may cause oscil-
lation. Keep the length of leads and traces that connect
capacitors between the LM4835’s power supply pin and
ground as short as possible. Connecting a 1F capacitor,
C
B, between the BYPASS pin and ground improves the
internal bias voltage’s stability and improves the amplifier’s
PSRR. The PSRR improvements increase as the bypass pin
capacitor value increases. Too large, however, increases
turn-on time and can compromise amplifier’s click and pop
performance. The selection of bypass capacitor values, es-
pecially C
B, depends on desired PSRR requirements, click
and pop performance (as explained in the section, Proper
Selection of External Components), system cost, and size
constraints.
SELECTING PROPER EXTERNAL COMPONENTS
Optimizing the LM4835’s performance requires properly se-
lecting external components. Though the LM4835 operates
well when using external components with wide tolerances,
best performance is achieved by optimizing component val-
ues.
The LM4835 is unity-gain stable, giving a designer maximum
design flexibility. The gain should be set to no more than a
given application requires. This allows the amplifier to
achieve minimum THD+N and maximum signal-to-noise ra-
tio. These parameters are compromised as the closed-loop
gain increases. However, low gain demands input signals
with greater voltage swings to achieve maximum output
power. Fortunately, many signal sources such as audio
CODECs have outputs of 1V
RMS (2.83VP-P). Please refer to
the Audio Power Amplifier Design section for more infor-
mation on selecting the proper gain.
Input Capacitor Value Selection
Amplifying the lowest audio frequencies requires high value
input coupling capacitor (0.33F in
Figure 2). A high value
capacitor can be expensive and may compromise space
efficiency in portable designs. In many cases, however, the
speakers used in portable systems, whether internal or ex-
ternal, have little ability to reproduce signals below 150 Hz.
Applications using speakers with this limited frequency re-
sponse reap little improvement by using large input capaci-
tor.
Besides effecting system cost and size, the input coupling
capacitor has an affect on the LM4835’s click and pop per-
formance. When the supply voltage is first applied, a tran-
sient (pop) is created as the charge on the input capacitor
changes from zero to a quiescent state. The magnitude of
LM4835
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