Clamper (electronics)

A clamper (or clamping circuit or clamp) is an electronic circuit that fixes either the positive or the negative peak excursions of a signal to a defined voltage by adding a variable positive or negative DC voltage to it. The clamper does not restrict the peak-to-peak excursion of the signal (clipping); it moves the whole signal up or down so as to place its peaks at the reference level.

Not to be confused with Clipper (electronics), a similar circuit that imposes fixed limits and does not offset the signal.
Not to be confused with Voltage clamp, a technique and device used in electrophysiology.

A diode clamp (a simple, common type) consists of a diode, which conducts electric current in only one direction and prevents the signal exceeding the reference value; and a capacitor, which provides a DC offset from the stored charge. The capacitor forms a time constant with a resistor load, which determines the range of frequencies over which the clamper will be effective.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.