Compression point

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
1 dB compression point (P1dB) on a graph of the transfer function (in German). An ideal amplifier will produce a straight line (German: ideale Kennlinie). A real-world amplifier has an output power limit and will therefore exhibit gain compression (German: reale Kennlinie)

The compression point is a metric describing an aspect of electronic amplifiers. For example, the 1-dB compression point (sometimes notated as P1dB[1][2]) is the output power of the amplifier (for the signal of interest) at which it differs from an ideal linear amplifier by more than 1 dB. So a larger 1-dB compression point means that the amplifier can produce larger outputs (for the same amount of distortion).[3] It will often be quoted by manufacturers of amplifiers[4]..[5]

The compression point is sometimes used (interchangeably with the third-order intercept point) to define the upper limit of the dynamic range of an amplifier. A rule of thumb that holds for many linear radio-frequency amplifiers is that the 1 dB compression point point falls approximately 10 dB below the third-order intercept point.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Frenzel, Lou (October 24, 2013). "What's The Difference Between The Third-Order Intercept And The 1-dB Compression Points?". Electronic Design.
  2. ^ "1dB Compression Point (P1dB Point)". May 16, 2015.
  3. ^ Rouphael, Tony J. (January 1, 2009). Rouphael, Tony J. (ed.). RF and Digital Signal Processing for Software-Defined Radio. Newnes. pp. 161โ€“198 – via ScienceDirect.
  4. ^ "Product Documentation - NI". www.ni.com.
  5. ^ Rouphael, Tony J. (January 1, 2014). Rouphael, Tony J. (ed.). Wireless Receiver Architectures and Design. Academic Press. pp. 179โ€“261 – via ScienceDirect.