Conclusion
This project involved the design of a Class-D Audio Amplifier circuit involving the complete IC Design flow from concept to layout to testing. The important features for the chip can be seen in the table below.
| Features | Values |
| Power Supply VDD | 2.5V |
| Triangle wave frequency FTRI | 500kHz |
| Bandwidth | 49kHz |
| Efficiency | 94% | Output impedance ROUT | 500 mOhm |
| Max Input Voltage | ±0.575V |
| Max Output Voltage | +/-2.3V @ 8 Ohm |
| PSRR | >72dB |
| Deadtime | 60nS |
| HD3 | 1% |
Table 1: Specifications of Class-D Audio Amplifier Design
Reference
[1] B. Vigraham, J. Kuppambatti and P. R. Kinget, "Switched-Mode Operational Amplifiers and Their Application to Continuous-Time Filters in Nanoscale CMOS," in IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 49, no. 12, pp. 2758-2772, Dec. 2014, doi: 10.1109/JSSC.2014.2354641.
[2] X. Jiang, "Fundamentals of Audio Class D Amplifier Design: A Review of Schemes and Architectures," in IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 14-25, Summer 2017, doi: 10.1109/MSSC.2017.2712368.
[3] M. Bloechl, M. Bataineh and D. Harrell, "Class D Switching Power Amplifiers: Theory, Design, and Performance," IEEE SoutheastCon, 2004. Proceedings., 2004, pp. 123-146, doi: 10.1109/SECON.2004.1287908.
[4] F. A. Himmelstoss and K. H. Edelmoser, "High dynamic class-D power amplifier," in IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 1329-1333, Nov. 1998, doi: 10.1109/30.735834.
[5] D. Dapkus, "Class-D audio power amplifiers: an overview," 2000 Digest of Technical Papers. International Conference on Consumer Electronics. Nineteenth in the Series (Cat. No.00CH37102), 2000, pp. 400-401, doi: 10.1109/ICCE.2000.854703.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Prof. Peter Kinget and TA Petar Barac for their meticulous and patient teaching through the course.
And we are thankful to Apple Inc. for giving us an opportunity to tape-out, their IC design engineers for suggestions, Columbia University for providing adequate resources.