There are three bipolar junction transistor amplifier topologies: common emitter, common base and common collector. (For field-effect transistors, the analogous circuit configurations are common source, common gate and common drain. In the old world of vacuum tubes, they were common cathode, common grid and common plate.) This particular classification derives from the external circuit configuration. […]
Industry Experts
Today’s complex ‘system of systems’ driving need for sophisticated tools, detailed modeling, data continuity
by Bill Schweber, Jaffa Engineering, LLC It’s not news that many of today’s products are actually a complex “system of systems” consisting of two, three and more semi-independent subsystems, each with its own complexity and intricacies. What has changed is the dramatic degree to which these constituent systems are now interrelated at more and higher […]
ADCs: sufficient sampling at Nyquist’s rate
Converting a real-world (analog) signal into a digital signal means that you have to bring the signal into an Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC). From there, the ADC turns the continuous analog signal into a discrete, digital signal by sampling, or taking regular snapshots of, the curves of the analog signal. After sampling is complete, any information […]
Put your finger on it: capacitive touch switching
Rather than a physical switch it is now common to use “touch” switches to interface to many types of electronic equipment. Smartphones are an obvious example but touch switches are now in cars, oscilloscopes, ovens and many other types of industrial and consumer electronics. A touch screen will usually be a specialized screen with a […]
Looking back over 50 years of interconnect innovations with Dietmar Harting
It wasn’t an easy beginning: Wilhelm Harting had actually planned for his son to spend a fair bit of time in the USA on completing his studies. The idea was for the young business studies graduate to gain some experience before starting work. But everything changed on the sudden death of the company’s founder in […]
How can you provide reverse-polarity protection?
The reverse connection of a circuit to its DC power source, whether it’s a battery or power supply, can damage and even destroy the electronics. For this reason, many connectors are “keyed” to ensure correct connection. But there are many connections which are directly hard-wired using wires inserted into screw terminals, or ring or spade […]
How to measure electrolytic capacitors
Electrolytic capacitors are often used because they deliver relatively large capacitance values in a physically small package. The compact packaging is possible because they use a thin dielectric layer in conjunction with an etching or sintering process that vastly increases the area of the plates and the capacitance associated with them. Most capacitors have two […]
The formidable forgotten FETs
The world is full of MOSFETs — they are the cornerstone of most ICs. However, the humble JFET still exists, although it is a bit of a niche market now and not always easy to find. Vishay, who took over the Siliconix brand many years ago, seem to have dropped JFETs now, although Siliconix was one […]
Synchronous buck regulators and overcurrent protection (OCP)
by Haifeng Fan Synchronous buck regulators are widely used in industrial and infrastructure applications to step down 12V rails to point-of-load inputs as low as 0.6V for microcontrollers, FPGAs, memory and peripheral I/Os. Overcurrent protection (OCP) is essential to protect these switching regulators from damage by excessive current. Cycle-by-cycle current limiting is typically used due […]
Documenting code: use this when you just don’t know what to write
Documenting code is something most people dislike doing. By the time you are done with writing, debugging, testing, fixing and re-testing, you are so sick of it that you just don’t want to look at it anymore. But most of us have already been on the other side of the code: a recipient of some […]
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