The compression point is a metric describing an aspect of electronic amplifiers. For example, the 1-dB compression point (sometimes notated as P1dB12) is the output power of the amplifier (for the signal of interest) at which it differs from an ideal linear amplifier by more than 1 dB. So a larger 1-dB compression point means that the amplifier can produce larger outputs (for the same amount of distortion).3 It will often be quoted by manufacturers of amplifiers.45
The compression point is sometimes used (interchangeably with the third-order intercept point) to define the upper limit of the dynamic range of an amplifier. A rule of thumb that holds for many linear radio-frequency amplifiers is that the 1 dB compression point point falls approximately 10 dB below the third-order intercept point.
References
References
- Frenzel, Lou (October 24, 2013). "What's The Difference Between The Third-Order Intercept And The 1-dB Compression Points?". Electronic Design.
- "1dB Compression Point (P1dB Point)". May 16, 2015.
- Rouphael, Tony J. (2009). "Transceiver System Analysis and Design Parameters". Signal Processing for Software-Defined Radio. pp. 161–198. doi:10.1016/B978-0-7506-8210-7.00006-0. ISBN 978-0-75-068210-7.
- "Product Documentation - NI". www.ni.com.
- Rouphael, Tony J. (2014). "System Nonlinearity". Wireless Receiver Architectures and Design. pp. 179–261. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-378640-1.00004-4. ISBN 978-0-12-378640-1.