The present invention relates to Class-D amplifiers, and in particular to
bit-flipping sigma-delta modulator (SDM) implementations of such
amplifiers. Such amplifiers are particularly although not exclusively
suitable for audio equipment such as hi-fi and personal music amplifiers.
The present invention provides a bit flipping sigma delta modulator (BF
SDM) having a multiple feedback loop filter structure. The modulator
comprises a quantiser coupled to a bit flipping means, a look ahead
quantiser to determine the next quantiser output, and a controller which
determines whether to change the output of the bit flipping circuit. The
modulator comprises a feedback loop arranged to add feedback from the
output of the modulator to its input. The modulator comprises
compensation circuit to adjust the states of the modulator in order to
correct for bit flipping of the output of the quantiser. This adjusts the
input to the quantiser to correspond to an input having feedback from a
non bit flipped quantiser output.