Cascade Gain
If multiple devices are connected in cascade, and their individual ISOI and OSOI are known, it is possible to calculate the ISOI and OSOI of the entire system. It is helpful to think of how they are derived in the following ways. For the ISOI, the second-order distortion components can be "moved" to the beginning of the cascade, where the ISOI of the first component is unaffected by any gain, the ISOI of the second component is divided by the gain of the first component, and this process continues to the end of the cascade. In this case the gain of the last device has no effect on the cascade ISOI.
In the OSOI case, a similar process can be performed, except the distortion components are moved to the end of the cascade. Here, the OSOI of the first device is affected by the gain of all subsequent devices, and so on. For the OSOI, the gain of the first device has no effect on the cascade OSOI.
Both coherent and non-coherent derivations of these equations exist, due to the possible phase differences of the distortion components. In the coherent case, all of the components are exactly in phase, and their voltages simply add, while in the non-coherent case the phases are random and the distortion powers add together. The coherent case represents the most conservative (i.e. worst-case) answer, and the non-coherent case is generally a more accurate description for most systems.
Read more about this topic: Second-order Intercept Point
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