Can you elaborate on the SpeakerGuard that is incorporated in the TPA family of audio amplifiers?
Awasthy: Speakers are basically inductive loads. They are badly affected if DC signal is supplied to them (they can even catch fire). Audio is a variable AC signal, still some amount of DC gets added when the signal is fed to the speaker. The typical set-up of audio system is audio processor (audio system on chip), audio power amplifier and a speaker. Between the audio processor and the amplifier, a designer makes sure that no DC signal passes from the audio processor to the amplifier. For this a capacitor is used. Capacitor blocks the DC and allows only the AC signal to pass. In manufacturing after the system is assembled, in case of a faulty capacitor, DC signal passes through the circuit on its first power-up. This incurs a rise in cost by damaging the speakers. This is a serious issue in manufacturing. To avoid this, Texas Instruments (TI) uses the DC detect feature in its TPA family. In case of a faulty capacitor (or if there is a short circuit at the input), the DC detect will en
