Frequent contributor Nick Cornford recently published a delightfully clever design idea ( Reference 1 ) using a platinum RTD calibrated to output a 1 mV/ C signal that’s perfect for direct readout via a standard DMM I thought Nick’s ...
Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a terrific basis for digital to analog conversion. Credit goes to features like simplicity and (theoretically) perfect differential and integral linearity. Unfortunately, PWM’s need for ripple filtering tends ...
A silly simple and ubiquitous circuit network is a variable resistance consisting of the series connection of a manually adjusted rheostat-connected pot and fixed resistor shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Classic variable resistance with the series ...
Few methods for analog to digital conversion are more “mature” than the classic combination of a voltage-to-frequency converter (VFC) with a counter. VFC digitization is naturally integrating, so good noise rejection is inherent, as is ...
For a recent design project, a robust power supply was needed to control the gates of high-side FETs. Optocouplers readily translate the logic signals up to the correct control voltages to drive the FETs. However, to ensure that the FETs turn on ...
This Design Idea describes a new class of logic gates, which we have named resistor-FET-logic, aka “RFL.” How do we know it is new? While FET switches are common today, we have been unable to find a similar resistor-FET-logic. Further, ...
Low-cost monolithic precision adjustable voltage references are available in multiple families from multiple manufacturers, but this isn’t true for adjustable precision current references. That’s unfortunate, because while most ...
Self-powered isolation amplifiers, which need no external isolated power supply, provide versatile and convenient interfaces in many applications that require galvanic isolation of the signal source. Examples of such applications include circuits ...
LED drivers have lots of features and require plenty of external components. When your application requires no PWM (pulse-width-modulated) dimming or controlled frequency operation, your primary concern may be that too much current could damage or ...
Besides its mind-boggling simplicity and programmable resolution, the chief attribute of the Shannon decoder DAC (SD) is speed ( Ref. 1 ), converting a serial n-bit digital stream into an analog signal in just nT seconds where T = 1 bit time. Of ...