Clippers
Wave shaping circuits are the electronic circuits, which produce the desired shape at the output from the applied input wave form. These circuits perform two functions
There are two types of wave shaping circuits: Clippers and Clampers. In this chapter, you will learn in detail about clippers.
A clipper is an electronic circuit that produces an output by removing a part of the input above or below a reference value. That means, the output of a clipper will be same as that of the input for other than the clipped part. Due to this, the peak to peak amplitude of the output of a clipper will be always less than that of the input.
The main advantage of clippers is that they eliminate the unwanted noise present in the amplitude of an ac signal.
Clippers can be classified into the following two types based on the clipping portion of the input.
These are discussed in detail as given below −
A positive clipper is a clipper that clips only the positive portion(s) of the input signal.
The circuit diagramof positive clipper is shown in the following figure −
A negative clipper is a clipper that clips only the negative portion(s) of the input signal. You can obtain the circuit of the negative clipper just by reversing the diode and taking the reverse polarity of the reference voltage, in the circuit that you have seen for a positive clipper.
The circuit diagram of a negative clipper is shown in the following figure −
The input wave form and the corresponding output wave form of a negative clipper, for a negative reference voltage VrefVref, are shown in the following figure −