2004 35th Annual IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference
A New Class-D Stereo Audio Amplifier Using Direct Speaker Current Control
Kyu Min Cho Won Seok Oh
Dept. of Information and Dept. of Electrical
Communications, Engineering,
Yuhan College, Korea Yuhan College, Korea
limsa@yuhan.ac.kr, oppa@yuhan.ac.kr,
Abstract –This paper presents a new class-D stereo audio
amplifier using three-phase full bridge circuit configuration,
which is controlled by a new switching method for the current
control. In the proposed switching method, the switching device
of upper arm or lower arm of the bridge circuit independently
acts according to the polarity of the reference current without
dead time, which is inserted to prevent the arm short. Therefore,
the proposed witching method is very useful for high frequency
switching. Also three-phase full bridge circuit is proposed as a
main circuit for the class-D stereo amplifier. The proposed
circuit can reduce two switching devices compared with the
conventional stereo amplifier uses two full bridge circuits. In
this paper, the specified strategy for driving stereo amplifier
with three-phase full bridge circuit is discussed. With the
experimental results, usefulness of the proposed amplifier is
confirmed.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the most cases of the audio amplifier that needs wide
bandwidth, the linear amplifier is used for the main power
amplification. The linear amplifier, however, has a very low
efficiency. Recently, class-D amplifier has been adopted in some
audio amplifier applications in order to overcome low efficiency. As
the class-D amplifier has a discrete switching operation, the
high-dynamic characteristics of the switching method are required.
To get rid of high performance, high order passive filter, multiple
control loops and modern control theory as like a sliding mode
control are adopted in some cases. Sometimes, the small linear
amplifier is used to fill up the dynamic characteristics added on the
class-D amplifier that is a main power amplifier. However, for some
applications, which do not need high fidelity, it is desirable to
construct audio amplifier with low cost, compact size and low
power consumption.
In this paper, a new switching method for the current control of
the class-D amplifier and a scheme of stereo operation using three-
phase full-bridge circuit configuration, which has a DC source and
six switching devices, are proposed. The proposed amplifier is
controlled with only a current control loop and the switching
harmonics included in the output current are filtered by series filter
inductance. As the main circuit configuration and the control circuit
are very simple, the proposed amplifier can be constructed in a
compact.
In this paper, the detailed algorithm of the proposed switching
method in which the switching devices of the upper arm and lower
arm act independently according to the current polarity and the
strategy to drive with the three-phase full-bridge circuit as a stereo
amplifier are described. Finally, experimental results of the
proposed class-D stereo audio amplifier are presented and
discussed.
0-7803-8399-0/04/$20.00 ©2004 IEEE. 1308
Aachen, Germany, 2004
Won Sup Chung Hee Jun Kim
Dept. of Semiconductor Div. of Electrical and
Engineering, Computer Engineering,
Chongju University, Korea Hanyang University, Korea
circuit@chongju.ac.kr hjkim@hanyang.ac.kr
Fig. 1 Configuration of the proposed amplifier
II. A NEW CLASS-D STEREO AUDIO AMPLIFIER
A. Configurations of the Main Circuit
Fig. 1 shows main circuit of the proposed class-D stereo audio
amplifier. It is a conventional three-phase full-bridge circuitry.
However, the load configuration is not a normal three-phase
construction.
Two speakers are connected at the channel A and B through the
filter inductance. The channel N is a common channel and is not a
ground level different with conventional stereo amplifier. Even
though two channels produce stereo effects, the sound level of each
channel is alike. Therefore the speakers are connected with the
reverse polarity each other to reduce the load of common channel N.
In this case, of course, the references of the each channel have
different polarities.
B. Direct Current-Control Method of Speaker
In most amplifiers, the voltage of speaker is controlled with the
original sound signal. In the proposed amplifier, however, the
speaker current is directly controlled. If the speaker is equivalently
presented by a series RL circuit with variable back-electromotive
force, which is generated by the elasticity of speaker, the proposed
method of direct current-control of speaker should reproduce the
original sound more correctly than the conventional voltage control
method.
Fig. 2 shows reference signal generator of the proposed amplifier
for the two channel stereo sound. As the main circuitry of the
proposed amplifier has a common channel N, the reference current
is composed of three signals. The three-phase full-bridge circuitry is
controlled with these three reference signals.
C. A New Switching Strategy for the Current Control
For the high frequency switching, a new switching method that
drives the switching devices of upper and lower arm independently
according to the polarity of the current is proposed.
Fig. 3 shows basic conceptual diagram of the proposed switching
method.
 2004 35th Annual IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference
Fig. 2 Reference signal generator
Fig. 3 Conceptual diagram of the proposed method
Where, Ip and In represent current polarities, Gp and Gn are
switching signals of the upper and lower arm of the bridge circuitry,
respectively. The dead time is applied at the changing instant of the
current polarity. The actual adopted dead time duration is either
same as applied dead time or almost zero in case of minimum
because the dead time is applied from the falling edge of the
switching signal of lower arm when the current polarity is changing
from negative to positive. It can be seen that the actual adopted dead
time is the most minimized dead time. By using the proposed
switching strategy, the dead time compensation is no longer
required and the discontinuous phenomenon of the current and the
possibility of the arm short are minimized.
Fig. 4 Specific timing diagram
1309
Aachen, Germany, 2004
Fig. 5 Current control circuit of one channel
The specific timing diagram for the generation of the proposed
switching signal is presented in Fig. 4. After taking logic AND of
Sp,n and Ip,n, we can get Sp´ and Sn´. At every falling edge of those
signals, the appropriate dead time Op and On are applied. And then,
gating signals of upper and lower arm are given by (1) and (2).
G p = S p ∗ I p ∗ Op (1)
Gn = S n ∗ I n ∗ On (2)
In Fig. 4, it can be seen that the actual dead time is adopted in
point A. The actual adopted dead time is either same with the
applied dead time or smaller. In a case of point B, it can be seen that
the actual dead time is not adopted. Fig. 5 shows an example circuit
to generate the proposed gating signal. It can be constructed simply
with some additional ICs on the typical gate signal generator.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In order to verify the validity of the proposed circuitry and control
strategy, the experiment has been performed using the 70 W
proto-type amplifier operates with 24 V of DC link voltage. Fig.
6(a) shows 1 kHz rectangular response and Fig. 6(b) shows spectra
of the reference and real current. It can be seen that the response is
very excellent over audible frequency band.
Fig. 7(a) represents music reproduction response. Real signal
follows well reference signal and it is confirmed that original sound
is well reproduced through the octave analysis of music sound
signal as shown in Fig. 7(b). With the experimental results,
usefulness of the proposed amplifier is confirmed.
(a) Waveforms of the reference and real current
Fig. 6 1 kHz rectangular responses
2004 35th Annual IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference Aachen, Germany, 2004

IV. CONCLUSION

This paper proposed a new class-D stereo audio amplifier, which

is constructed by using three phase full bridge circuit configuration.
In the proposed amplifier, speaker current is directly controlled by a
new switching method, in which the switching device of upper arm
or lower arm of the bridge circuit independently acts according to
the polarity of the reference current without dead time. With the
experimental results, it is confirmed that high dynamic responses
are achieved in the current control and the output signal is well
reproduced. The proposed amplifier is not a high fidelity amplifier,
however, it is expected that the proposed amplifier can be used in
some applications such as public amplifier or concert amplifier.

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Fig. 6 1 kHz rectangular responses (continued)
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(a) Waveforms of the reference and real current

(b) Octave analysis of the reference and real current

Fig. 7 Music reproduction response

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