Electus Distribution Reference Data Sheet: IMPMATCH.

PDF (1)

IMPEDANCE MATCHING: A PRIMER

From time to time youll come across the term impedance matching in various areas of electronics, and especially in fields like RF and audio engineering. However even in these fields its often misused, probably because many people dont really understand the concepts behind it. In this primer well try to clarify what impedance matching is really all about, why its important in some situations and not important in others. Textbooks usually explain the idea of impedance matching with a very simple example of an electrical generator feeding a resistive load, as shown in Fig.1. Because the generator has an internal resistance of its own (R G ) as all real generators do this tends to dissipate some of the generators output power as heat, whenever we connect a load to its output terminals. So the full mechanical power fed into the generator cant be drawn from it as electrical power, because some will always be wasted in R G . When early electrical engineers were faced with this problem, they naturally enough did everything they could to reduce the internal resistance of their generators. However they were inevitably still left with SOME internal resistance, because its impossible to reduce the resistance to zero unless you run the generator at a temperature of close to absolute zero (0Kelvins, or -273C). Once they had minimised the internal resistance, their next step was to see if there was some way that they could minimise the amount of power wasted in it, by varying the resistance of the load. And what they discovered is shown in the Fig.2, which plots the amount of power transferred into the load R L as its resistance is varied. As you can see, the amount of power reaches a peak or MAXIMUM when the load resistance is the same as or matches the generator resistance. It falls away for values both higher and lower than this figure, showing that matching the two is clearly desirable if we want to maximise the power able to reach the load. So this is where the idea of matching the resistance of the load to that of the generator came from. Before long, it was extended to cover the general situation of any load impedance connected to a source of electrical energy or voltage (EMF), with its own internal source

Fig.1: A generator driving a load resistance R L and its own internal resistance R G.
impedance. And the idea of matching the load and generator resistance became one of matching the source and load impedance impedance matching . Now this may sound simple and straightforward, but its important to remember where the idea came from, and also realise what exactly is going on when we do match load and generator/source resistances or impedances. True, the POWER transferred to the load will be a maximum; but at the same time, the actual power being dissipated in the generators internal resistance is EXACTLY THE SAME as that reaching the load! In other words, HALF the total power from the generator is now being turned into heat inside R G , because its resistance is now half the total connected across the generator. The other half is the load resistance R L . For exactly the same reason, R G and R L will now be acting as a 2:1 voltage divider across the generator so that only HALF the generators output voltage (E G ) will be appearing across the load. In terms of voltage transfer, then, matching the impedances isnt particularly efficient: it actually gives a 6dB loss. Does this mean that impedance matching really only applies to generators in power stations? No, and in fact it doesnt really apply there either or at least, not simply. All it really means is that as you draw more and more power from a generator by reducing the load resistance, a point is reached where half the generators output power is being wasted inside it. Obviously with very high power generators its not a good idea to load them even this heavily let alone dropping the R L even further, where even more power is lost inside the generator than reaches the load. (See the blue curve in Fig.2, showing the power lost in the generator.) Most power station generators are loaded with an R L somewhat higher than R G , to waste as little power as possible. So when IS impedance matching a good idea? Glad you asked. Basically its for situations rather different from that in Fig.1, where were stuck with a particular load or cable impedance, and we still want to either maximise the power transferred into the load, or minimise the amount of power reflected back from it into the cable, or both.

Fig.2: How the power fed to the load varies as the load resistance is varied (red plot), and what happens to the power wasted in R G (blue plot).

RF CABLE MATCHING
For example in many RF situations, we tend to have a relatively fixed LOAD impedance say a resonant

Electus Distribution Reference Data Sheet: IMPMATCH.PDF (2)

quarter-wave antenna, with an impedance of 50 ohms resistive. To minimise interference we also have to use coaxial cable to connect the antenna to a transmitter or receiver. Now as you may be aware, coaxial cable behaves as a transmission line at radio frequencies, and as a result it has its own characteristic impedance . This simply means that because of the inductance-tocapacitance (or L/C) ratio of the cable, RF energy tends to move along it with a particular ratio between the electric and Fig.3: A transmitter or other source of RF feeding power to an magnetic fields (i.e., voltage to current). antenna, via a coaxial cable or other transmission line. Heres In most cases when the energy reaches where impedance matching IS important... the end of the cable, we want as much as possible to transfer into our load the antenna, in the case of a transmitter, or the thing is to ensure that the transmitter output stage will input RF stage in the case of a receiver. For a feed as much RF energy as possible into the cables transmitter this gives the highest power efficiency, while input impedance. There can even be an advantage in for a receiver it gives the best noise performance. deliberately mismatching the impedances (i.e., having the And guess what? To ensure this optimum energy transmitter impedance much lower than the cable), to transfer, we need to match the characteristic impedance minimise power loss in the final stage and also ensure of the cable to the impedance/resistance of the load. So that if RF is reflected back from the antenna end, most for a 75 antenna or receiver input, we need to use of it is bounced right back up again. So this situation is a 75 coaxial cable. For a 50 antenna we need to use bit like the generator in a power station... 50 cable, and so on. (see Fig.3) This, then, is an area where impedance matching IS VIDEO INTERCONNECTIONS quite important. Because what happens if the cable and Now lets consider another area where impedance antenna (or receiver) impedances are NOT matched is matching again tends to be quite important: video that some of the RF energy reaching the end of the interconnections. Here were dealing with signals which cable wont be transferred into the load, but is span from DC up to about 6MHz or so well into the REFLECTED back along the cable, towards the source. RF range. And we also tend to find ourselves using This can set up standing waves in the cable (another coaxial cables, to reduce interference. So again we need cause of power loss, and possibly cable damage), and can to match the cable impedance and the load impedance, to prevent signal reflection. With video, these reflections can cause ringing and ghosting in the final picture. (RingIng is multiple edges on outlines in the picture, while ghosting is multiple images each shifted horizontally.) Most video equipment is designed to be interconnected with 75 cables, and has inputs which are designed to present this same input impedance. So matching tends to occur automatically, providing you use the correct cables. How about video outputs are Fig.4: Video interconnections, where impedance matching is again these impedance matched too? Yes, quite important. generally they are, not because it results in maximum signal transfer but because with video signals we DONT want any signal also cause overheating in the transmitter output stage. reflected back from the load to be reflected back all In a receiver, the mismatch degrades the effective over again this would make ringing even worse. So receiver gain and noise figure. often the video outputs of cameras, VCRs, DVD players How do you ensure correct impedance matching in and so on are fitted with a 75 series resistor inside, to this type of RF situation? Generally the cable impedance provide back termination for the cable (Fig.4). This is is more or less fixed, and the antenna impedance may be just another name for impedance matching at the source the same. But quite a few techniques have been evolved end of the output cable. to tweak the matching between the two: tuned stubs, Note that just as with our original generator in Fig.1, quarter-wave transformers and so on. Similar things can this added impedance matching resistor produces an be done at the input of a receiver. For details of these inevitable 6dB loss of signal half the video output is RF matching techniques youll have to refer to a good lost in the resistor. Thats the penalty of impedance RF textbook, like The ARRL Handbook . matching at the source end, and its why the output Notice though that so far weve only considered the buffer amplifier in video equipment is usually given a situation at the LOAD end of the RF cable. How about gain of twice what is needed, to allow for the the source end isnt impedance matching important unavoidable 6dB loss when a cable and correctly there too? Less so, especially for transmitters. The main terminated load are connected.

Electus Distribution Reference Data Sheet: IMPMATCH.PDF (3) AUDIO IMPEDANCE MATCHING
How about impedance matching in audio applications? There are a few applications where its important, but perhaps not as many as you might think. Because audio signals are quite low in frequency, its generally only where they have to be sent over quite long cables that transmission-line effects make it necessary to perform impedance matching to prevent reflections. And in most cases, we can get quite efficient signal transfer simply by arranging for the output impedance of our Fig.5: When a speaker is connected to a hifi amp, the impedances audio source (such as an amplifier) to be are NOT matched. much lower than that of our load (such as a loudspeaker). to be provided with a particular load impedance, but In the case of most hifi amplifiers and speakers, for not in order to maximise power or signal transfer. example, we generally arrange for the amplifier output Generally its to ensure that the transducer performance impedance to be very much LOWER than the speaker is better controlled by the electrical damping effect of impedance. A typical speaker impedance is 8, for the load. example, but most hifi amplifiers have an output impedance of 0.1 or less (Fig.5). This not only ensures For example when correctly loaded these transducers that most of the audio energy is transferred to the might have cleaner output, with fewer unwanted speaker, but also that the amplifiers low output resonances and hence a much flatter response. impedance provides good electrical DAMPING for the speakers moving voice coil giving higher fidelity. SUMMARY Older valve amplifiers needed a different form of Hopefully this has given you a better understanding of impedance matching, because output valves generally the idea of impedance matching, where it came from and had a fairly fixed and relatively high output impedance, what its really designed to achieve. so they couldnt deliver audio energy efficiently into the As you can see, true impedance matching is generally low load impedance of a typical speaker. So an output only needed for RF and video interconnections and transformer had to be used, to produce a closer mainly at the LOAD end of coaxial cables or other impedance match. The transformer stepped up the transmission lines. impedance of the speaker, so that it gave the output valve an effective load of a few thousand ohms; this was Remember too that when impedance matching is at least comparable with the valves own output performed at the SOURCE end of a cable, theres always impedance, so only a small amount of energy was a penalty: loss of power (-3dB) or signal level (-6dB), wasted as heat in the valve. because when the generator impedance and the impedance of its load are equal, half the power is The only other area in audio where impedance inevitably lost in the generator resistance. matching (of a different kind) tends to be important is with transducers like microphones, gramophone pickups, (Copyright 2001, Electus Distribution) tape heads and so on. Here the transducer often needs