Portal:Electronics

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Modern surface-mount electronic components on a printed circuit board, with a large integrated circuit at the top

Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other electrically charged particles. It is a subfield of physics and electrical engineering which uses active devices such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog signals to digital signals.

Electronic devices have hugely influenced the development of many aspects of modern society, such as telecommunications, entertainment, education, health care, industry, and security. The main driving force behind the advancement of electronics is the semiconductor industry, which in response to global demand continually produces ever-more sophisticated electronic devices and circuits. The semiconductor industry is one of the largest and most profitable sectors in the global economy, with annual revenues exceeding $481 billion in 2018. The electronics industry also encompasses other sectors that rely on electronic devices and systems, such as e-commerce, which generated over $29 trillion in online sales in 2017. (Full article...)

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Credit: Tony R. Kuphaldt, User:Dna-webmaster
Basic telephony multiplexer system.

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James Watt (19 January 1736 – 19 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor and engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. Improving on the design of the 1711 Newcomen engine, the Watt steam engine, developed in 1765 offered a dramatic increase in fuel efficiency. Watt was ranked first, tying with Edison, among 229 significant figures in the history of technology by Charles Murray's survey of historiometry presented in his book Human Accomplishments. Watt was ranked 22nd in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history. The SI unit of power, the watt, is named after him.

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Figure 1. A mechanical filter made by the Kokusai Electric Company intended for selecting the narrow 2 kHz bandwidth signals in SSB radio receivers. It operates at 455 kHz, a common IF for these receivers, and is dimensioned 45 mm × 15 mm × 15 mm (1.77 in × 0.59 in × 0.59 in).

A mechanical filter is a signal processing filter usually used in place of an electronic filter at radio frequencies. Its purpose is the same as that of a normal electronic filter: to pass a range of signal frequencies, but to block others. The filter acts on mechanical vibrations which are the analogue of the electrical signal. At the input and output of the filter, transducers convert the electrical signal into, and then back from, these mechanical vibrations.

The components of a mechanical filter are all directly analogous to the various elements found in electrical circuits. The mechanical elements obey mathematical functions which are identical to their corresponding electrical elements. This makes it possible to apply electrical network analysis and filter design methods to mechanical filters. Electrical theory has developed a large library of mathematical forms that produce useful filter frequency responses and the mechanical filter designer is able to make direct use of these. It is only necessary to set the mechanical components to appropriate values to produce a filter with an identical response to the electrical counterpart. (Full article...)

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A microphone, sometimes referred to as a mike or mic, is an acoustic to electric transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, tape recorders, hearing aids, motion picture production, live and recorded audio engineering, in radio and television broadcasting and in computers for recording voice, VoIP. Several early inventors built primitive microphones prior to Alexander Bell, but the first commercially practical microphone was the carbon microphone conceived in October, 1876 by Thomas Edison.

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Credit: commons:User:Inductiveload
Diagram of the transistor driving of a unipolar stepper motor.

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