Circuit Description (Continued)
Q
3
and Q
13
, all transistors and diodes are identical in size.
Transistors Q
1
and Q
2
with Diode D
1
form a current mirror
which forces the sum of currents I
4
and I
5
to equal I
ABC
:
I
4
+I
5
=I
ABC
(2)
where I
ABC
is the amplifier bias current applied to the gain
pin.
For small differential input voltages the ratio of I
4
and I
5
ap-
proaches unity and the Taylor series of the In function can be
approximated as:
(3)
(4)
Collector currents I
4
and I
5
are not very useful by themselves
and it is necessary to subtract one current from the other.
The remaining transistors and diodes form three current mir-
rors that produce an output current equal to I
5
minus I
4
thus:
(5)
The term in brackets is then the transconductance of the am-
plifier and is proportional to I
ABC
.
Linearizing Diodes
For differential voltages greater than a few millivolts,
Equa-
tion (3)
becomes less valid and the transconductance be-
comes increasingly nonlinear.
Figure 1
demonstrates how
the internal diodes can linearize the transfer function of the
amplifier. For convenience assume the diodes are biased
with current sources and the input signal is in the form of cur-
rent I
S
. Since the sum of I
4
and I
5
is I
ABC
and the difference
is I
OUT
, currents I
4
and I
5
can be written as follows:
Since the diodes and the input transistors have identical ge-
ometries and are subject to similar voltages and tempera-
tures, the following is true:
(6)
Notice that in deriving
Equation (6)
no approximations have
been made and there are no temperature-dependent terms.
The limitations are that the signal current not exceed I
D
/2
and that the diodes be biased with currents. In practice, re-
placing the current sources with resistors will generate insig-
nificant errors.
Applications:
Voltage Controlled Amplifiers
Figure 2
shows how the linearizing diodes can be used in a
voltage-controlled amplifier. To understand the input biasing,
it is best to consider the 13 kΩresistor as a current source
and use a Thevenin equivalent circuit as shown in
Figure 3
.
This circuit is similar to
Figure 1
and operates the same. The
potentiometer in
Figure 2
is adjusted to minimize the effects
of the control signal at the output.
For optimum signal-to-noise performance, I
ABC
should be as
large as possible as shown by the Output Voltage vs. Ampli-
fier Bias Current graph. Larger amplitudes of input signal
also improve the S/N ratio. The linearizing diodes help here
by allowing larger input signals for the same output distortion
as shown by the Distortion vs. Differential Input Voltage
graph. S/N may be optimized by adjusting the magnitude of
the input signal via R
IN
(
Figure 2
) until the output distortion is
below some desired level. The output voltage swing can
then be set at any level by selecting R
L
.
Although the noise contribution of the linearizing diodes is
negligible relative to the contribution of the amplifier’s inter-
nal transistors, I
D
should be as large as possible. This mini-
mizes the dynamic junction resistance of the diodes (r
e
) and
DS007981-8
FIGURE 1. Linearizing Diodes
LM13700
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