Electronics
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Electronics is the study and use of electrical devices that operate by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically charged particles. These devices include vacuum tubes and semiconductors.
Some people study how such devices work in general, as part of physics.
Other people design and construct electronic circuits to solve practical problems. This is part of electrical, electronic and computer engineering.
Most electronics systems fall into one of these two categories:
- Some electronic circuits process and distribute information. These are communication systems.
- Other electronic circuits convert and distribute energy. These are control systems.
One way of looking at an electronic system is to divide it into the following 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/voltage signals.
- Signal processing circuits - These consist of electronic components connected together to manipulate, interpret and transform the signals.
- Outputs - Actuators or other devices (also transducers) that transform current/voltage signals back into useful physical form.
Take as an example a television. Its input is a broadcast signal received by an antenna or fed in through a cable. Signal processing circuits inside the television extract the brightness, colour and sound information from this signal. The output devices are a cathode ray tube that converts electronic signals into a visible image on a screen, and magnet driven audio speakers.
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[edit] Digital circuits
Computers and electronic clocks are constructed of digital circuits.
Basic blocks:
- Logic gates
- flip-flops
- Counters
- resistors
Complex devices:
- Microprocessors
- Microcontrollers
- Digital Signal Processors
[edit] External links
[edit] Tutorials and projects
- Wikibooks Electronics
- Electronics Infoline Directory for electronics projects
- Electronics tutorials.com
- Williamson Labs' Electronics tutorial
- Ian Purdie's Electronics tutorials
- Iguana Labs' Electronics Tutorials and Kits
- Electronic Meanings and Acronyms
- Lessons in Electric Circuits - A free series of textbooks on the subjects of electricity and electronics.
- Radio-Electronics.Com Free information and resources covering radio and electronics
- Electronic tutorials - Books and projects for self access learning