The measurements of electrical and optical characteristics of the discharge and concentrations of produced ozone and nitrogen oxides were performed to evaluate the efficiency of ozone production in an AC surface dielectric barrier discharge in dry synthetic air at atmospheric pressure. The discharge was driven in an amplitude-modulated regime with driving AC frequencies of 1, 5 and 10 kHz, variable discharge duty cycle of 0.02-0.8 and synthetic air flow rate of 2-10 slm. The experimental results show that ozone and nitrogen oxides concentrations increased with increasing AC high-voltage amplitude, increasing discharge duty cycle and with increasing residence time. The highest calculated ozone production yield reached similar to 90 g/kWh with a corresponding energy cost of about 20 eV/molecule. The production yield was found to be independent of the driving AC frequency and specific energy density in the 10(-4)-10(-2) Wh/l range.