A rectifier that conducts on only the positive or only the negative half of the incoming sinusoidal signal. It produces a "pulsating" DC composed of single-polarity "humps" at the incoming AC frequency, with a flat "dead time" during the time the input signal goes to the opposite polarity . The half-wave rectifier requires more filtering than a full-wave rectifier to produce the same degree of ripple in the output DC waveform.