The compression point is a metric describing an aspect of electronic

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

s. For example, the 1-dB compression point (sometimes notated as P1dB) is the output power of the amplifier (for the signal of interest) at which it differs from an ideal

linear amplifier A linear amplifier is an electronics, electronic circuit whose output is proportional to its input, but capable of delivering more power (physics), power into a Electrical load, load. The term usually refers to a type of radio-frequency (RF) powe ...

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 In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

). It will often be quoted by manufacturers of amplifiers.. The compression point is sometimes used (interchangeably with the

third-order intercept point In telecommunications, a third-order intercept point (IP3 or TOI) is a specific figure of merit associated with the more general third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3), which is a measure for weakly nonlinear systems and devices, for exa ...

) 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

Electronic amplifiers {{electronics-stub