Articles

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using AI to assist in the design of my hardware and firmware projects. The experience has generally been good, even though the outcome isn’t always useful. So, I’m presenting a short summary ...

High school trigonometry combined with four-quadrant multipliers can be exploited to yield sinusoidal frequency doublers. Nothing non-linear is involved, which means no possibly strident filtering requirements. Starting with some sinusoidal signal ...

Hybrid relays are changing the way we think about switching inside electronic circuits. By combining the fast response of solid-state components with the reliability of mechanical contacts, these devices offer the best of both worlds. Whether you ...

Increasing ADC resolution Many electronic designs contain an ADC, or more than one, to read various signals and voltages. Often, these ADCs are included as part of the microcontroller (MCU) being used. This means, once you pick your MCU, you have ...

A Planet Analog article, “2N3904: Why use a 60-year-old transistor?” ( Ref. 1 ) by Bill Schweber, inspired some interest in this old transistor and how it’s commonly used, and if any uncommon uses might exist. Here’s one we ...

This is just an ultra-quick blog post about a nostalgic IC: µPC1237. It’s a timeless bipolar analog IC from NEC designed for protecting stereo audio power amplifiers and loudspeakers. I used to see this awesome chip all the time in the ...

The typical anti-log circuit The basic anti-log amplifier looks like the familiar circuit of Figure 1. Figure 1. The typical anti-log circuit has uncertainties related to the reverse current, I S , and is sensitive to temperature. The approximate ...

When to use over brushless alternatives Recent years have seen growing adoption of brushless DC motors. They are smoother and more efficient than brushed motors and have lower maintenance demands and higher torque-to-power ratios. On the other ...

Arc generator modules may be small in scale, but they offer big opportunities for hands-on exploration in electronics. Whether you are experimenting with arc simulation, testing circuit behavior under fault conditions, or simply curious about ...

Back on December 3, 2024, a Design Idea (DI) was published, “Single-supply single-ended inputs to pseudo class A/B differential output amp” ( Ref. 1 ), which created some discussion about using the circuit as a full wave rectifier. The ...