Low Distortion and High Thermal Stability in

Transistor Audio Power Amplifiers

Summary-Two paramount objectives in the design of a high- sary and suficient is the following: There shallbe no
quality transistor audio power amplifier are attaining good linearity nonlinearity in the open-loop transfer characteristic at
and ensuring good thermal stability. Conflicts frequently arise in
realizing these objectives in that steps taken to achieve one tend to
any signal level below clipping which causes the incre-
worsen the other. This paper examines these two subjects to deter- mental gain, ;.e., the slope of the transfer characteristic,
mine the essential conditions which must be fulfilled in order for the to approach zero. Expressed differently, if and y are
objectives be met. As a result of this examination the requisite the open-loop input and output, respectively, and B is
conditions are found and several useful circuit techniques are de- the closed-loop feedback ratio, one requires that
veloped. These techniques provide excellent thermal stability and
at the same time permit attaining good linearity with reasonable
amounts of negative feedback. Experimental results are given which
confirm the validity of the principles and the value of the techniques. B
If (1) is satisfied, then the closed-loop incremental gain
DISTORTION
NONLINEAR
will beconstant at 1 / B andthe closed-looptransfer

A CHIEVING LOW distortion in anaudio power characteristic will belinear.Theimplications

amplifier requires that the over-all transfer char-condition are as follows: 1) class B operation is ruled
acteristic exhibit no appreciable nonlinearity in
the portion of the characteristic in which normal pro-
out,
of this

class A B operation is acceptable and with eased

bias tolerances, and3) nonlinear techniques may be con-
gram material spends an appreciable amount of time. sidered for use in the achievement of thermal stability.
For music and speech this regionis that around the This last point will now be considered in detail.
origin of the transfer characteristic, and for this reason
low-level or crossover distortion is of major concern in
the design of a high-quality audio power amplifier. As is well known, the thermal stability of a transistor
The presence or absence of crossover distortion in a amplifier is governed by the thermal-electrical positive
transistor power amplifier depends on the type of bias feedback process whereby heating causes increased col-
appliedandthe effectiveness of distortion-reducing lector current which in turn causes still more heating.
feedback. Because class A operation is too inefficient t o For this process to reach a stable equilibrium the “loop
be acceptable, push-pull class B or A B operation must gain” for this process must be made less than unity by:
beemployed.Sinceitmaybeassumedthatover-all 1) selectingsuitablevalues of the various parameters
negativefeedback ill beincorporated in anyhigh- aroundtheloop, e.g., I c ~ othermal
, resistance 0, and
quality audio power amplifier, the choice between these power supply voltage Vcc, and/or 2) introducing nega-
twomodes of operation depends on the way the bias tive feedback to modify one or more of the processes
arrangement influences thenature of theopen-loop comprising the loop. Since the useful choices for Icno, 6,
transfer characteristic and thereby the effectiveness of and VCCare usually very limited, and since adequate
the feedback in producing linear closed-loop response. stability can seldom be attained by this means alone,
A suficient conditionfor goodclosed-looplinearity the feedback approach is essential in achieving thermal
would be to require that the open-loop transfer char- stability.Negativefeedbackcanbeappliedeitheras
acteristicbe as linear as possible.On thisbasispure direct electrical feedback or as thermal-electrical feed-
class B operationwouldbeexcludedsinceobjectional back. The latter method consists of utilizing tempera-
crossover nonlinearities appear even with high-inlped- ture-sensitive bias elements to reduce the bias current
ance drive. On this same basis class A B operation would as temperature increases. limitation of this method is A&

be acceptable if, but only if, the bias were set at pre- that the temperature influencing thebiaselements is
cisely the correct value. This would be a very stringent the ambient or heat sink temperature rather than the
requirement. Fortunately this condition is not a neces- transistor junction temperature, the parameter which
sary one. A less stringent condition which is both neces- actually determines the electrical characteristics of the
transistor. Appreciable time lags occur between changes
in thesetemperatures so thatthermal-electricalfeed-
Manuscript received April 1964.
R. A. Greiner is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, back is ineffective in stopping rapid thermal runaway
Lniversity of Vv?sconsin, Madison, IITis. processes. This type of feedback is so slow t h a t i t is
D. G. Daugherty is with the Department of Electrical Engineer-
ing, University of Kansas, I,aa.rence, Kan. perhaps better not regarded as feedback but rather as

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empiricalbiascompensationforchangesinambient
temperature.Therapidrunaway processes mustbe
sensed and inhibited by electrical means. Direct electri-
cal feedback is thus the primary method for ensuring
thermal stability.
T o determine how stability may actually be achieved,
i t is necessary to consider the precise mechanisms by
which thermal instability can occur. A pairof transistors
comprising a push-pull class A B amplifier can be con-
nected in essentially two d-c configurations, series and
parallel.Theparellelarrangementappliestotrans-
former-coupledcircuitswhereastheseriesconnection
prevails in virtually all output-transformerless circuits.
The latter group is of concern here, and a series con-
figuration will therefore be used as the basis of analysis.
Consider the circuit of Fig. 1 and currents il, iz, and
i ~ .Asnotedabove,thermalrunawayinvolvesanin-
crease in collector current. For an increase in il to occur
there must be an equal increase
in ( i ~ + i 2 ) . Since the
output stage is presumably included within a negative
feedback loop, an appreciable increasein i~ is precluded
in t h a t such a n increasewouldconstitutedistortion
which would be reduced by the feedback. Thus Qz must
provide the path for an increase in the collector current
of Q1 and vice versa. For examining the collector cur-
rent behavior of Q1 and Qz under class A B operation,
we mayconsiderseparatelythenear-quiescentand
large-signalphases of operation.Underano-signalor
small-signalconditionclass A operationprevails,and
there is an appreciable collector current flowing due to
the applied bias. Accordingly, quiescent runaway is a
distinct possibility if the quiescent current is not care-
fullycontrolled.Henceonerequirementforthermal
stability is adequate bias stabilization.
Fig. transformerless amplifier circuit for
analyzing thermal stability.
An effective technique for stabilizing transistor emit-
ter and collector current is to apply negative current
feedback by introducing resistance in the emitter cir-
cuit of the transistor. This is of course extensively used circuitdoesnotprovideanybiasstabilization.How-
in low-power class A circuits. However, two major ob-
jections to the use of large emitter resistances may be
raised in thecaseofpoweramplifiers: 1) the voltage stabilization and Ioff
and power gainsof the output stage are severely reducedcuit, as in t h a t of Fig. 2, RE and the quiescent current
and 2) power losses in the emitter resistances can be-
come prohibitively large. It must be further noted that should be large forgood bias stability, some upper limit
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Daugherty and Greiner: Distortion and Thermal Xtability in Transistor Amplifiers 27
capacitivebypassing of theseresistances in class A B
amplifiers is not useful because the emitter signal cur-
rentshaveinherentlynonzeroaverageswhichwould
cause the capacitors to charge and bias the amplifier
into cutoff. Accordingly either small emitter resistances
mustbeemployedorsomenoncapacitivebypassing
arrangement must be found.
Suchanarrangementisthat of Fig. 2, wherethe
emitter resistor is bypassed a t large currents by a series
pair of silicon diodes. Since normal silicon diodes require
approximately 0.6-volt forward bias before appreciable
conduction occurs, by suitable selection of RE and the
bias current the quiescent operating point may be set In
the center of the moderate sloperegion of the trans-
conductance characteristic, as shown in Fig. 3. In this
casediodebypassingcommenceswhentheemitter
current is driven to twice the quiescent value. This ar-
rangement providesgood bias stability by allowing large
quiescent RE while at the same time permitting signal
operation at highcurrentswithhighgainandsmall
losses. An apparentdisadvantage of thisapproach is
that it is nonlinear. T h e open-loop transfer character-
istic of a class AB power amplifier using a pair of tran-
sistors connected as in Fig. 2 would be as shown in Fig.
4.This transfer characteristic has a slope which is much
greater than zero everywhere. Therefore, the necessary
condition for low closed-loop distortion is satisfied and
t h e open-loop nonlinearity is not in fact a disadvantage.
Thus byjudicious application of nonlinear elements itis
possible to obtain excellent bias stabilization without
causing appreciable amounts of distortion.
Consider now the large-signal phases of operation of
the class A B system of Fig. 1, i.e., consider a time when
one transistor is conducting and the other is nominally
OFF. If the current Ioff in the OFF transistor is actually
zero, then there is no dissipation in that transistor dur-
ing its OFF time, and the dissipation in the tran-
sistor is exactlythatpredictedfromsimpletheory.
However, if I o f f # O , excess current flows in both tran-
sistors, and there is an excess dissipation per transistor
given bylicc(lorr,~+I,tr,2)/2,where V C C is definedin
Fig. 1. To prevent thisexcess dissipation from becoming
excessive dissipation, (Ioff,~+Iof~,2) must be kept small.
Thus the second condition for thermal stability is effec-
tive minimiziation of Ioff.
A technique for minimizing I o f t in germanium tran-
sistors (Ioff isnegligible in silicon) is showninFig. 5
where a silicon diode has been added in series with the
emitter of the germanium transistor. For this arrange-
ment, IoorrgIcBo if the base circuit conditions are such
t h a t V B<0.6 volt during the OFF time. Note that this
ever, by combining this technique with that of Fig. 2,
as shown in Fig. 6, an arrangement providing both bias
minimization results. In this cir-
IQ should be chosen sucht h a t IQRE 0.6 volt. While RE
28 IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N AUDIO M arch,-April

Fig. 6---A stabilization-minimization technique combining

Fig. 2-A nonlinear bias stabilization technique. the features of the techniques shown in Figs. 2 and 5.

IC
must be observed. If RE is too large the slope of the
open-loop transfer characteristic becomes too small to
sarisfy (1). This occurs both because of the degenera-
tion introduced by R E and because the necessarily small
quiescentcurrent ( I Q = ~ . ~ / R E ) areduction
causes in
for small-signal operation. The appropriate upper
limit on RE can be determined from analysis of the cir-
cuit in which these techniques are to be utilized. This
0 analysisshouldinclude a feedbackstabilityanalysis.
0 such be
Themust
amplifier
over-all
design the that
Fig. 3-The transconductance characteristic smallestslope of the open-loop transfercharacteristic
for the circuit of Fig. 2.
will satisfy ( l ) ,and at the same time all values of slope
between this and the maximum must imply acceptable
stability. feedback
I t should be noted that in theseseveraltechniques
silicondiodeshavebeenemployed in spite of rather
thanbecause of theirtemperaturedependence. Ac-
cording-ly the diodes should be isolated thermally frotn
thepowertransistorsandshouldbeprovidedwith
suitable heat dissipators of their own.

Fig. 4-.A typicalopen-looptransfercharacteristicfor
amplifier using two transistors connected as in Fig.. 2.
EXPERIXEXTAL htPLIFIERS
The validity of theprinciplesgivenaboveandthe
value of the techniques described are confirmed by the
results for two experimental amplifiers. Fig. 7 shows the
I
output configuration employed in these amplifiers. This
Push-pull circuit is basicallS7 the L ~ quasi-complementary
~ I ampli-
fier modified to utilize the stabilization techniques de-
scribed above. For the compound transistor composed
of Q 3 and Q 6 the stabilization-minimization technique of
Fig. 5 is employed.Forresistance R: thecondition
R7 5 RL 8 ohms is observed in order to limit the varia-
tion in open-looptransfercharacteristicslopeto no
more than a factor of two. Since six-ohm resistors were
a t h a n dR
, 7 is ohms andIQ 100 ma. I n the uppercorn-
7r pound transistor Q2 Q 4 a modification of Fig. 5 is ap-
plied t o Q4, and the compound as a whole is stabilized by
use of the technique of Fig. 2. Diode D Sminimizes I o f f

Fig.
effective
off-current
minimization
technique H. C. Lin,
“Quasi
complementary
transistor
amplifier,” Elec-
for use
with
germanium
transistors. tronics, vol. 29, pp. 173-175; September, 1956.

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 Daugherty
and
Greiner:
Distortion
and
Thermal
Stability in Transistor
Amplifiers 29

The excellence of the thermal stability is evidenced

by the following data. With the amplifier operating un-
der maximum dissipation conditions, the power supply
current, and the output transistor heat-sink tempera-
ture were recorded a t frequent intervals during a 41-
minute test period. The heat-sink temperature varied
from an initial value of 30°C to its equilibrium value of
62OC. Duringthisintervaltherewasnodetectable
change in powersupplycurrent.Fromtheconstancy
of this current i t is clear that the dissipation was also
constant and that the thermal stability was very good.
T h e secondamplifierbasedonFig. 7 employs V g g
2 VCC=120 volts, CBs= 1000 uf, R1= 100 ohms, and
Rz 500 ohms. This combination produces 150 watts of
sine-wave power in an 8-ohm load and exhibits distor-
tion and stability characteristics similar to those given
above for the 50-watt unit. As a check on the effective-
ness of the diode-resistor networks, this 150-watt am-
plifier was “simplified” by omitting several of the diodes
and adjusting the bias accordingly. This modified cir-
cuit exhibited poor thermal stability and failed destruc-
Fig, 7-The basic output configuration used in the two experimental tively at a power level of about 50 watts. From these
amplifiers described in the text. All three P-N-P transistors are
germanium, both N-P-N transistors are silicon, and all diodes resultsit is seen thatthediode-resistornetworks of
are silicon. Figs. 2 and 6 do promote thermal stability and at the
same time permit achieving low distortion performance
with reasonable amounts of negative feedback.
of Q4 while R6 and Dh prevent Q 4 from turning off too T h e use of nonlinear techniques is often complicated
abruptly and introducing crossover distortion. By sym- and expensive and involves a time-consuming selection
metry, Rs R7 so t h a t Re has a value of 6 ohms. andmatching of components.Theapplication of the
T h e use of diodes Dl,Dz,and D3 to provide the base techniques described
here,
however, is completely
bias voltage is a standard practice. The merits of this straightforward. The utilization of the silicon diodes is
practice are twofold. One obvious merit is the good bias based on the fact that for appreciable current flow a
compensation provided for variations in ambient tem- foward drop of about 0.6 volt is required. Since exactly
perature. A second and more important feature of the 0.6 volt is not required, no matching of V-I character-
practice is that the diodes exhibit a dynamic resistance istics and/or temperature dependences is involved. The
which is much smaller than the static resistance V / I . diodes are never reverse-biased, and therefore reverse
Thismeansthattheinstantaneousvariation of bias characteristicsareunimportant.Thusanyhighcon-
voltage with signal is much less than would be observed ductance silicon diode of appropriate current rating can
if a linear resistance were used in place of the diodes. be used.
The constancy of this bias voltage not only improves the
symmetry of the transfer characteristic but, more im- CONCLUSION
portant, promotes thermal stability by providing ade- Low-distortion amplification requires adequate nega-
quate turn off bias for Qz- Q 4 when Q3 Q 6 are driven tive feedback and an open-loop transfer characteristic
ON. which has reasonable slope a t all levels other than clip-
In the first amplifier based on Fig. 7, VBB 83 volts, ping. Thermal stability requires adequate bias stabiliza-
VO= 75 volts, CBS=0, and (Rl+R2) 2000 ohms. tionandeffectiveoff-currentminimization.Thesere-
This amplifier delivers 50 watts sine-wave power to an quirements can be met simultaneously by applicationof
8-ohm load and exhibits open-loop harmonic distortion the techniques of Figs. 2 and 6, as exemplified in Fig. 7,
whichvariesbetween 2 and 4 percentasthesignal and including the output stage in an over-all negative
level is varied from zero to full power. When a voltage feedback loop. By these means it ispossible to build
amplifier is added and 20 t o 26 d b of feedback is applied, verystable,low-distortiontransistorpoweramplifiers
the distortion drops by an order of magnitude, as ex- using either silicon orgermaniumtransistorsorany
pected, and a stable, low distortion amplifier results. combination thereof.

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