Comparators are great at turning little signals into large digital outputs. In the example described here, a friend wanted to detect the presence of a small 60-Hz AC signal centered on 2.5 V DC. When the AC is absent (beneath the specified ...
In adjustable, frequency-selective RC networks, the reciprocal of an RC product, ωC = 1/RC, determines the corner frequencies of the network. If the adjustable elements are potentiometers with a linear-control characteristic that is, taper ...
Current-feedback amplifiers offer high bandwidth with minimal power-supply current draw. However, they're rarely used as transimpedance amplifiers in photodiode applications due to the high current noise of their inverting inputs. The Figure 1 ...
To determine the specifications of a solar-generating plant, I needed to accurately measure the load current a product consumed. The product switched several internal devices on and off during an interval of several seconds. An ammeter showed that ...
Some applications require clock-timing adjustments, such as generating precision clocks for time-interleaved ADCs, or delay adjustments in a variety of precision-timing and pulse-delay applications. This Design Idea describes a delayed-pulse ...
This Idea for Design provides a visual indication of an input voltage’s relationship to upper and lower threshold values and can be used as a quick pass/marginal/fail tester. It uses a modified Wien-Bridge oscillator structure to create an ...
Vintage triggered-sweep oscilloscopes find use in many applications. However, they have no internal delay line, so they can't display the pulse that triggers the sweep. Moreover, early laboratory scopes contain delay lines having insufficient ...
The classic implementation of a voltage-halving circuit uses two equal-value resistors. Using 1% resistors provides a divider output with 2% accuracy. For most applications, this performance is cost-effective and more than adequate. However, when ...
You can build an analog calculator using a pulse-width modulator (PWM) to perform accurate four-quadrant multiplication and division. While this approach won’t help you ace any math tests, it demonstrates some useful sub-circuits that extend ...
For a variety of reasons, designers often discover that their creations need yet more power-supply voltages. For example, a system powered by 2.5 V power supplies suddenly needs a precision 1.4 V reference for a signal-level-shifting circuit and ...