Microcontrollers must often read the status of switches in control applications. A typical switch configuration uses pullup resistors on both of the switches to pull the signals high or low for the microcontroller to read...
Articles and news - 8
Active multiplexing saves inputs
Spice models differential stripline
Differential signaling is a common technique for obtaining high noise immunity for critical signals in high-speed digital pc-board systems. The pc board's traces, carrying differential signals, are often edge-coupled offset striplines, with the traces sandwiched between two reference planes...
A pitch-linear VCO. Part 2 - Taking it further
In this second part, we’ll look at some alternative ways of arranging things for other possible applications...
A pitch-linear VCO. Part 1 - Getting it going
An ongoing project (or gadget) called for a means of generating an audio output to represent a varying voltage level. Ho hum: that sounds like a voltage-controlled oscillator...
Peak power point
Imagine that you have a voltage source in series with some source resistance feeding power to a variable load. The relationship between load voltage, load current, and cell current can be drawn...
A simple, purely analog -130 dB THD sine wave generator
The recent Design Idea “Getting an audio signal with a THD < 0.0002% made easy” discloses a low THD sine generator which led me to dust off a design...
TI introduces the world's smallest MCU, enabling innovation in the tiniest of applications
Texas Instruments introduced the world's smallest MCU, expanding its comprehensive Arm Cortex-M0+ MSPM0 MCU portfolio. Measuring only 1.38 mm2, about the size of a black pepper flake...
Three discretes suffice to interface PWM to switching regulators
It’s remarkable how many switching regulator chips use the same basic two-resistor network for output voltage programming...
Single-supply single-ended input to pseudo class A/B differential output amp
From the micromixer topology by Barrie Gilbert, this amplifier allows a single-ended input to be converted to a Class A/B current output from a single supply...
The Internet formed in the 1960s - How did it start?
Initially imagined by Nikola Tesla in the early 1900s, the concept of a world wide web didn’t see creation until 60 years later. Take a trip alongside the history of the internet...
