Detailed explanation of the basic Clipper circuit

In this article I will explain a very basic Clipper circuit using simple components. The clipping circuit is a wave shaping circuit and is used to remove or cut off a portion of the applied wave in order to control the shape of the output waveform.

A clipper circuit with its output and input waveform is shown below.

One of the most basic clipping circuits is the half-wave rectifier. A half-wave rectifier cuts off either the negative half cycle or the positive half cycle of an alternating waveform and allows only one half cycle to pass through.

Such a circuit has wide applications in radars, digital computers and other electronic systems to remove unwanted portions of input signal voltages above or below a specified level. Another application is in radio receivers for communications circuits where noise pulses that rise well above the signal amplitude are reduced to the desired level.

Clipping circuits are also called voltage limiters, amplitude selectors, or segmenters. A simple diode is used for chopping circuits.

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