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CLIPPINGDETECTION & DIAGNOSTICS
(see fig. 16)
An active pull-down circuit is provided to signal
out the occurrence of any of the conditions de-
scribed later. In order to use this function, the CD-
DIA pin (#4) has to be resistively connected to a
positive voltagereference(between 5V and Vs).
A) Clipping Detection
Current is sunk whenever the output clipping dis-
tortion level reaches a fixed 0.5% threshold; this
functionallows gain compression facility when the
amplifier is overdriven.
B) OutputFault Diagnostics
Current is sunk as soon as one of the following
output faultsis recognized:
- short-circuit to GND
- short-circuit to Vs
- short-circuit acrossthe load(after turn-on)
- open load (before turn-on)
The diagnostics signal remains steadily on until
the fault is removed.
All the output fault conditions (listed above) can
be distinguished from the clipping detection (A)
because of theirdifferenttime duration.
THERMAL WARNING
(seefig. 17)
Thermal protection has been implemented in ac-
cordance to a new principle involving different
steps:
1) Thermalfoldback(
L
inear
T
hermal
S
hutdown)
2) Shutdown with soft restart(
A
bsolute
T
hermal
S
hutdown)
As long as the junction temperature remains be-
low the preset threshold (140
°
C) the IC delivers
the full power. Once the threshold has been
reached, a thermalfoldback startslimiting the out-
put signal level; the output power is then reduced,
thus decreasingalso the temperaturewithout out-
put signal interruption (LTS). Supposing the ther-
mal foldback does not reduce the junction tem-
peratureto a safe level, a completeshutdown will
occurat 160
°
C (ATS).
Soft restart avoids large voltage disturbance
across the loudspeaker, due to the presence of
high input signals when the IC comes out of ther-
mal shutdown.
Currentis sunk from the CD-DIA pin (#4)when the
thermal protection is acting.The voltage at pin #4
bounces back and forth (depending on the ampli-
fier input signal magnitude) during the linear ther-
mal intervention (LTS) and stays low (sinking cur-
rent) after the amplifier has been eventually
shut-down(Absolute Thermal Shutdown)
D93AU005A
CLIPPING
DETECTOR/
DIAGNOSTICS
OUTPUT
(pin 4)
Vo
0
CLIPPING
S/C TO GND
NORMAL OPERATION
FAULT DIAGNOSTICS
NORMAL OPERATION
Figure 16:
Clipping Detection& DiagnosticsWaveforms
TDA7396
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