Cutoff Frequency in Electronics

In electronics, cutoff frequency or corner frequency is the frequency either above or below which the power output of a circuit, such as a line, amplifier, or electronic filter has fallen to a given proportion of the power in the passband. Most frequently this proportion is one half the passband power, also referred to as the 3 dB point since a fall of 3 dB corresponds approximately to half power. As a voltage ratio this is a fall to 2^1/2 ≈ 0.707 of the passband voltage.

Far from the cutoff frequency in the transition band, the rate of increase of attenuation (roll-off) with logarithm of frequency is asymptotic to a constant. For a first-order network, the roll-off is −20 dB per decade (approximately −6 dB per octave.)