Articles and news - 10

Classic neon lamp can resolve your
Classic neon lamp can resolve your AC power indicator mandate
Mar 2, 2025 Articles

You’ve got an apparently simple design requirement on your latest AC-line powered project: provide a distinctly illuminated indicator to show that the unit is plugged into the line and that power is “on,”...

Intel disintegration semiconductor giant
Intel: The disintegration of a semiconductor giant?
Feb 27, 2025 Articles

What’s going on at Intel, the largest beneficiary of the U.S. push to onshore chip manufacturing?...

Tracking preregulator boosts efficiency PWM power
Tracking preregulator boosts efficiency of PWM power DAC
Feb 25, 2025 Circuits

This design idea revisits another: “PWM power DAC incorporates an LM317”. Like the earlier circuit, this one implements a power DAC by integrating an LM317 positive regulator into a mostly passive PWM topology...

It Gaussian world
It's a Gaussian world
Feb 21, 2025 Articles

A previous article suggests that most digital output waveforms follow a nearly Gaussian profile. Let’s test that theory...

Hold that peak PIC
Hold that peak with a PIC
Feb 20, 2025 Articles

Capturing transient analog signals with a microcontroller normally involves adding a full-fat peak-hold circuit as an external peripheral. This novel approach minimizes that extra hardware by using a µP’s ability to switch its pins between analog and digital modes on the fly...

1-A 20-V PWM-controlled current source
1-A, 20-V, PWM-controlled current source
Feb 19, 2025 Circuits

This design idea takes an unusual path to a power-handling DAC by merging an upside-down LM337 regulator with a simple (just one generic chip) PWM circuit to make a 20-V, 1-A current source...

Real signals
Real signals
Feb 17, 2025 Articles

Which step best approximates the digital signals you work with every day? The piecewise-linear step starts with a jerk, mindlessly follows a perfectly uniform ramp, and smacks hard into its upper limit. Real signals don’t do that...

Metal detector uses single IC
Metal detector uses single IC
Feb 14, 2025 Circuits

The original application of the circuit was to locate coins, but it applies wherever you need to locate metal objects...

Vishay Intertechnology IGBT MOSFET drivers stretched
Vishay Intertechnology IGBT and MOSFET drivers in stretched SO-6 package enable compact designs, fast switching, and high voltages
Feb 13, 2025 News

Vishay Intertechnology introduced two new IGBT and MOSFET drivers in the compact, high isolation stretched SO-6 package...

Flip ON flop OFF
Flip ON flop OFF
Feb 12, 2025 Circuits

Toggle, slide, push-pull, push-push, tactile, rotary, etc. The list of available switch styles goes on and on...