How to Read a Capacitor's Values
Due to the limited space available for printing, physically small capacitors are especially difficult to read. Therefore capacitors use a wide variety of codes to describe their characteristics. More ...
Lead-Acid Battery Chemistry
As a lead-acid battery is repeatedly recharged, sulfation will build-up on the plates and the battery will begin to loose its capacity to restore to a full charge and eventually must be replaced. More ...
Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Etching
photolithography is the process of transferring patterns to photoresist covering the surface of a semiconductor wafer. To produce circuit features, these resist patterns must be transferred into the underlying layers of the device. Pattern transfer is accomplished by an etching process that selectively removes unmasked portions of a layer. More ...
Inductive Reactance
The opposition that the coil offers to ac is called inductive reactance. Like resistance, reactance is measured in ohms. Unlike resistance, reactance changes with frequency. And in an Inductor, the Voltage leads the Current by 90 degrees. More ...
Magnetism
Electric currents and magnetic fields are closely related. Whenever an electric current flows a magnetic field accompanies the current. When a wire is coiled up, the resulting magnetic flux becomes more concentrated. More ...
Integrated Circuit Fabrication Photolithography
Photolithography is the process of transferring patterns on a mask to a thin layer ofphotoresist covering the surface of a semiconductor wafer. These patterns define the various regions in an integrated circuit, such as the implantation regions, the contact windows, and the bonding pad areas. More ...
Transforming Sources for Circuit Analysis
Kirchhoff's laws and Ohm's laws can get pretty laborious when you're analyzing complex circuits. Through a transformation technique, you modify a complex circuit so that in the transformed circuit, the devices are all connected in series or in parallel. After the transformation, you no longer need to systematically apply Kirchhoff's laws. More ...
RC Filters
An RC filter can accept input sinewave signals and block certain bands of frquencies, thus allowing to pass only desired frquencies. This section describes passive RC filters. A passive RC filter uses only resistors and capacitors. More ...
Integrated Circuit Photoresist Process
The semiconductor photolithography process involves coating the substrate with A light-sensitive chemical layer called photoresist. Light is projected through a mask onto the substrate causings photoresists to react chemically. More ...
Conductors and Insulators
Materials can be classified depending on whether they allow charge to move. If charge can easily move through a material, these materials are called conductors. If charge cannot move through a material, then this material is called an insulator. More ...
Zener Diode
A zener diode is similar to a standard diode allowing current flow in the forward direction except the semiconductor is more heavily doped and this allows it to operate in the reverse-bias break down mode. More ...
Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Impurity Doping
Impurity doping is the introduction of controlled amounts of impurities into semiconductors to change their electrical properties. Diffusion and ion implantation are the two key methods of impurity doping. More ...
The Diode
A diode is a semiconductor component designed to allow current to pass in one direction. To form a diode, a P type semiconductor is joined with an N type of the same semiconductor element, forming a P-N junction. Diodes are used for turning AC to DC, isolating signals, and mixing signals. More ...
Use a Resistor to Measure Inductance
Inductance is usually measured by using an LCM multimeter. It can also be mesured using a resistor. With the resistor method, you adjust the frequency of a sine wave until the AC voltage accross the resistor and inductor are equal. Then using a formula to calculate the inductance. More ...
