In electronics, a driver is an electrical circuit or other electronic component used to control another circuit or other component, such as a high-power transistor. They are usually used to regulate current flowing through a circuit or is used to control the other factors such as other components, some devices in the circuit. The term is often used, for example, for a specialized integrated circuit that controls high-power switches in switched-mode power converters. An amplifier can also be considered a driver for loudspeakers, or a constant voltage circuit that keeps an attached component operating within a broad range of input voltages.
Typically the driver stage(s) of a circuit requires different characteristics to other circuit stages. For example in a transistor power amplifier, typically the driver circuit requires current gain, often the ability to discharge the following transistor bases rapidly, and low output impedance to avoid or minimise distortion.
Famous quotes containing the words driver and/or circuit:
“God help the horse, and the driver too!
And the people and beasts who have never a friend!
For the driver easily might have been you,
And the horse be me by a different end!
And nobody knows how their days will cease!
And the poor, when they’re old, have little of peace!”
—James Kenneth Stephens (1882–1950)
“The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)