Electronics is the study and use of electrical components and circuits to achieve a design goal.
The main parts, or electronic components, used in electronics are resistors, capacitors, coils of wire called inductors, integrated circuits, connection wires, and circuit boards. Older electronics used glass or metal vacuum tubes to control the flow of electrons. By the late 1960's and early 1970's the transistor, a semiconductor, began replacing vacuum tubes as control parts. At about the same time, integrated circuits (miniature semiconductor circuits containing large numbers of very small transistors put on on very thin slices of silicon) came into general use. Integrated circuits not only made it possible to significantly reduce the number of components needed to make electronic products, but also made them much more reliable and at a lower cost.
People interested in physics often study how and why these electronic components work. By their studies they are able to discover, invent, or improve electronic components. Other people design and construct electronic circuits, using these components, to solve practical problems. These people are a part of electrical, electronics and computer engineering field.
Most electronic systems fall into one of these two categories:
Processing and distribution of information. These are communications systems.
Conversion and distribution of energy. These are control systems.
One way of looking at an electronic system is to separate it into three parts:
Inputs - Electrical or mechanical sensors (or transducers), which take signals (in the form of temperature, pressure, etc.) from the physical world and convert them into current and voltage signals.
Signal processing circuits - These consist of electronic components connected together to manipulate, interpret and transform the information contained in the signals.
Outputs - Actuators or other devices (also transducers) that transform current and voltage signals back into useful physical form.
Take as an example a television set. A television set's input is a broadcast signal received from an antenna, or a wire cable provided by a cable television vendor. Signal processing circuits inside the television set use the brightness, colour, and sound information contained in the received signal to control the television set's output devices. The display output device may be a cathode ray tube (CRT) or a plasma or liquid crystal display screen. The audio output device might be a magnetically driven audio speaker. The display output devices convert the signal processing circuits' brightness and colour information into the visible image displayed on a screen. The audio output device converts the processed sound information into sounds that can be heard by listeners.
Analysis of a circuit/network involves knowing the input and the signal processing circuit, and finding out the output. Knowing the input and output and finding out or designing the signal processing part is called as synthesis.Contents [hide]
1 Analog circuits
2 Pulse circuits
3 Digital circuits
4 Other websites
4.1 Tutorials and projects
4.2 Some other good sites
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Analog circuits
Analog circuits are used for signals that have a range of amplitudes. In general, analog circuits measure or control the amplitude of signals. In the early days of electronics, all electronic devices used analog circuits for signal processing and control.
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Pulse circuits
Pulse circuits are used for signals that require rapid pulses of energy. For example, aircraft and ground radar equipment work by using pulse circuits to create and send high powered bursts of radio energy from radar transmitters. Special antennas (called "beam" or "dish" antennas because of their shape) are used to send ("transmit") the high powered bursts in the direction the beam or dish antenna is pointed.
The radar transmitter's pulses or bursts of radio energy hit and bounce back (they are "reflected") from hard and metallic objects. Hard objects are things like buildings, hills, and mountains. Metallic objects are anything made of metal, like aircraft, bridges, satellites, or even objects in space. The reflected radar energy is detected by radar pulse receivers which use both pulse and digital circuits together. The pulse and digital circuits in radar pulse receivers are used to show the location and distance of objects which have reflected the radar transmitter's high powered pulses.
By controlling how often the rapid pulses of radar energy are sent out by a radar transmitter (called the transmitter's "pulse timing"), and how long it takes for the reflected pulse energy to come back to the radar receiver, one can tell not only where objects are, but also how far away they are. Digital circuits in a radar receiver calculate the distance to an object by knowing the time interval between energy pulses. The radar receiver's digital circuits count how long it takes between pulses for an object's reflected energy to be detected by the radar receiver. Since radar pulses are sent and received at approximately the speed of light, the distance to an object can easily be calculated. This is done in digital circuits by dividing the speed of light by the time it takes to receive the radar energy reflected back from an object.
The time between pulses (often called "pulse rate time", or PRT) sets the limit on how far away an object can be detected. That distance is called the "range" of a radar transmitter and receiver. Radar transmitters and receivers use long PRT's to find the distance to objects that are far away. Long PRT's makes it possible to accurately determine the distance to the moon, for example. Fast PRT's are used to detect objects that are much closer, like ships at sea, high flying aircraft, or to determine the speed of fast moving automobiles on highways.
