3 V Headphone

Amplifier
Ton Giesberts

Many new devices require a headphone K3

connection, but due to the high level of
integration and miniaturisation there is
usually little room left. The low supply volt- VCC

age and/or battery voltage also causes C8 C5

problems. If no special techniques are
10µ 2µ2
used, the output power and headroom
are severely limited. 9 2
SVDD PVDD
The MAX4410 made by Maxim over- 8
OUTL OUTR
11

comes these problems not just by virtue of C3

R3
IC1
R4
C4

10k

10k
its small size, but also by including an L R
internal supply inverter (charge-pump). K1 C1 R1 100p MAXIM 100p R2 C2 K2
10 13
10k INL INR 10k
This requires only two small external 1µ 1µ
ceramic SMD capacitors (C6 and C7). 10V VCC
C6
3
C1P SVSS
7 VCC 10V

The supply voltage to the output stage is MAX4410

5 6
2µ2
now symmetrical and the outputs are JP1 C1N PVSS JP2

therefore relative to ground (no DC offset). 1

SHDNL SHDNR
12

This gets round the need for large output SGND PGND
capacitors to stop a DC voltage from 14 4 C7

reaching the headphones. A DC-coupled 2µ2

output can also be implemented using two
bridge amplifiers, but virtually all plugs
for stereo headphones are asymmetric
and use 3-pole connectors (common
ground), which can’t be connected to a
bridge output.
Each channel can be individually turned
off (SHDNL and SHDNR) by jumpers JP1
and JP2. During normal operation these
two inputs should be connected to the
positive supply. When both channels are
turned off the charge pump is also
switched off and the current consumption
drops to about 6 µA.
The IC also has thermal and short-circuit
protection built in. The IC switches to
standby mode when the supply voltage is
too low and it has a circuit that prevents
power-on and off plops at the outputs. The
recommended supply voltage is between
1.8 V and 3.6 V. The IC can deliver
about 80 mW per channel into a 16 Ω
load. The power supply should be able to
output at least 200 mA. In practice this
means that when you use a power supply
that also powers other circuits, it should
have at least 300 mA in reserve.
The amplifiers are configured in inverting
mode with a gain set by the ratio of two
resistors (R3/R1 or R4/R2); the input
impedance is determined by R1 and R2.
C1 and C2 are required to decouple any
possible DC-offset from the inputs. In the
MAX4410 evaluation kit these are small
tantalum capacitors, but we don’t recom-
mend these for use in audio applications.
Plastic film types would be much better,
although they take up much more room.
HF decoupling is provided by 100 pF
capacitors connected in parallel with R3
054022 - 11
and R4. These set the bandwidth of the
amplifiers to just over 150 kHz. The typi-
cal distortion is 0.003%. For more details
you should refer to the MAX4410
datasheet. It is also worth looking at the
datasheet for the associated evaluation kit.
The choice of capacitors for decoupling
etc., their positioning on the board and
the overall layout are very critical and
demand a lot of attention. Furthermore,
the 14-pin TSSOP package (with a pin
spacing of 0.65 mm) and SMDs in 0402
packages make it very difficult to con-
struct this circuit yourself. The IC is also
available in a (much more difficult to sol-
der) UCSP 16 package (ball grid array,
only 2.02 by 2.02 mm).
(054022-1)

2 elektor electronics - 7-8/2005