Electronics

for
Informatics
Module 1

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Electronics

 Electronics is a field of applied science

(branch of physics, engineering and
technology) dealing with control of
electron flow in:

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Electronics
 vacuum (electron tubes, CRT - cathode ray
tubes, electron microscope)

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Electronics
 gases (neon lamp)

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Electronics
 solids (semiconductor elements e.g. diode,
transistor)

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Electronics

 Electronics provides means for fast and

reliable transfer, storing and processing
of information
 Before the era of electronics, computers
were:

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Electronics
 mechanical: Charles Babbage’s difference and
analytical engines (19th century)

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Electronics
 electromechanical: Konrad Zuse’s Z3
computer (1941, 2000 relays, clock
frequency 5-10 Hz) and IBM Harvard Mark I
(1944, 765 000 elements, 4.5 tons, addition
– 0.3 s, multiplication – 6 s)

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Electronics
 Present state: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X
 64 cores, 2.7/4.2 GHz, 256 MB L3 cache, 39.5
billion transistors TSMC 7nm FinFET

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Power of abstraction
 The process of abstraction allows us to omit less
important details of a physical system without
significant loss of predictive efficiency
 For example, Newton’s laws of motion are simple
statements that relate the dynamics of rigid bodies
to their masses and external forces
 The force equation (F = m×a) enables us to calculate
the acceleration of a particle with a given mass for
an applied force
 This simple force abstraction allows us to disregard
many properties of objects such as their size, shape,
density, and temperature

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Power of abstraction
 Electrical engineering is the purposeful use of
Maxwell’s equations (or abstractions) for
electromagnetic phenomena

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Power of abstraction
 Consider a light bulb connected to a battery
with a pair of cables

 We are interested in finding out the amount

of current flowing through the bulb
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Power of abstraction
 To this end, we could use the Maxwell’s equations
with a careful analysis of the physical properties of
the bulb, the battery, and the cables (very
complicated!)
 We can simplify our task by ignoring some properties
of the circuit components and replace the bulb with a
discrete (lumped) element called resistor (R) and
wires with ideal conductors
 In the case of the battery, the voltage V is the
property which we most care about, thus, we can
lump the battery into a discrete element supplying a
constant voltage V

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Basic terms and definitions

 Current measures the flow of charge past a

point in the circuit. The units of current are
coulombs per second or amperes,
abbreviated as A
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Basic terms and definitions
 As charges move in circuits, they undergo
collisions with atoms and lose some of their
energy. It thus takes some work to move
charges around a circuit
 The work per unit charge required to move
some charge between two points is called the
voltage between those points (equivalent to
the difference in electrostatic potential
between the two points)
 The units of voltage are joules per coulomb
or volts, abbreviated as V
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Basic terms and definitions
 In a circuit, there are sources and sinks of
energy
 Some sources of energy (or voltage) include
batteries (which convert chemical energy to
electrical energy), generators (mechanical to
electrical energy), solar cells (radiant to
electrical energy), and power supplies and
signal generators (electrical to electrical
energy)
 All other electrical components are sinks of
energy
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Basic terms and definitions
 A common way to represent the behavior of a circuit
device is the I–V characteristic. This is a plot of the
current I through the device as a function of applied
voltage V across the device
 The resistor, has the simple linear I–V characteristic

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Basic terms and definitions

 This linear relationship is expressed by Ohm’s

Law: V = IR. The units of resistance are
ohms, abbreviated as Ω.
 If the battery supplies a constant voltage V
and has zero internal resistance, and if the
resistance of the bulb is R, we can compute
the current flowing through the bulb as:
I =V/R

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Basic terms and definitions

 Lumped elements in circuits must have a voltage V

and a current I defined for their terminals
 The elements must not interact with each other
except through their terminal currents and voltages
 The lumped circuit abstraction represents the
relevant properties of lumped elements using
algebraic symbols
 For example, we use R for the resistance of a
resistor. Other values of interest, such as currents I
and voltages V, are related through simple functions

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Abstraction layers
 Abstraction layers in description of digital
information processing system

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Basic circuit laws
 Kirchoff’s Current Law (KCL): the sum of the
currents flowing into a node (i.e. any point on
the circuit) equals the sum of the currents
flowing out of the node

 KCL expresses conservation of charge

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Basic circuit laws
 Kirchoff’s Voltage Law (KVL): the sum of the
voltages around any closed circuit is zero

 KVL expresses conservation of energy

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Basic circuit laws
 The power P provided or consumed by a
circuit device is given by P = VI

 The units of power are joules per second or

watts, abbreviated W
 A key part of designing a circuit is to employ
components with the proper power rating

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Basic circuit laws
 Some common prefixes used in electronics

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Resistors
 The resistance of the device depends only on
its physical properties – its size and
composition

 ρ - resistivity, L –length, A - cross-sectional

area of the material

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Resistors
 Resistor color codes

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Resistors
 Let’s try to decode this resistor

 Brown, black, yellow, silver

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Resistors
 Resistors also come in variable forms. The
two-leads device is called a rheostat. The
more common and versatile type with three
leads is called a potentiometer (a pot)

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Resistors

 The power rating of common carbon resistors

is indicated by the size of the device. Typical
values are 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, and 2 watts

 From P = VI and V = IR, we get: P = I2R and

P = V2/R 29
Resistors
 Equivalent circuit laws for resistors -
resistors in series

 By KCL, the current in each resistor is the

same
 Applying KVL and Ohm’s Law for the drop
across the resistors, we obtain: V = IR1 + IR2
+ IR3 = I(R1 + R2 + R3) = IReq
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Resistors
 Equivalent circuit laws for resistors -
resistors in parallel

 KCL requires: I = I1 + I2 + I3
 The voltage across each resistor is the same,
and, by KVL is equal to the battery voltage: V
= I1R1, V = I2R2, V = I3R3
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Resistors
 Equivalent circuit laws for resistors -
resistors in parallel

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Resistors
 Example: how much current flows through
the 20 kΩ resistor?

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Thevenin’s theorem
 The theorem states that any two-terminal
network of sources and resistors can be
replaced by a series combination of a single
resistor Rth and voltage source Vth

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Thevenin’s theorem
 Vth is the voltage across the circuit terminals
when nothing is connected to the terminals.
In practice, the voltage across the terminals
must be calculated by analyzing the original
circuit
 There are two methods for calculating Rth:
 short circuit all the voltage sources and open
circuit all the current sources in the original circuit
and combine resistors into one resistor using the
resistor equivalent circuit laws
 calculate the ISC current that would flow in the
circuit if we shorted the terminals. Rth = Vth/Isc
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Norton’s theorem
 This theorem states that any two-terminal network
of sources and resistors can be replaced by a parallel
combination of a single resistor Rnor and current
source Inor

 An ideal voltage source maintains a constant voltage

across and provides whatever current is required by
the rest of the circuit
 An ideal current source maintains a constant current
through it while the voltage across it is set by the
rest of the circuit
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Applications for resistors
 Current limiting
 For example, LED (light emitting diode)
typically operates with a voltage drop of 1.8
V and a current of 20 mA
 How can you operate the 1.7 V LED with a 9
V battery?

 V0 – IR – VLED = 0 37
Applications for resistors
 Voltage divider
 Some voltage Vin is applied to the input and
the circuit provides a lower voltage at the
output

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Applications for resistors
 Current divider
 A current source is applied to two resistors in
parallel

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Techniques for solving circuit
problems
 Calculate R4 current

 The standard method involves assigning

currents to each branch of the circuit and
then applying KVL and KCL
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Techniques for solving circuit
problems
 Calculate R4 current

 The mesh loop method - currents are

assigned to the circuit loops rather than the
actual physical branches of the circuit
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Techniques for solving circuit
problems
 The mesh loop method
 We move around the loops, applying KVL, but
including contributions from both loop
currents

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Techniques for solving circuit
problems
 Thevenin’s theorem
 Form the required two terminal network by
removing R4 and taking the two terminals at
the points where R4 was attached

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Input resistance
 The measuring instrument becomes part of
the circuit
 The act of measuring inevitably changes the
thing we are trying to measure
 Test instrument manufacturers specify a
quantity called the input resistance Rin

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Input resistance
 The effect of attaching the instrument is the
same as attaching a resistor with value Rin

 The circuit-altering effect of attaching the

measuring instrument is mitigated by making
the input resistance as high as possible
 as
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AC signals
 Sinusoidal signals
 Probably the most fundamental signal in electronics
since any signal can be constructed from sinusoidal
signals

 f – frequency (cycles/second), ω – angular frequency

(radians/second), φ – phase (radians)
 The repetition time trep is also called the period T of
the signal, and this is related to the frequency of the
signal by T = 1/f
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AC signals
 Sinusoidal signals
 There are several ways to specify the amplitude of a
sinusoidal signal that are in common use. These
include the following:
 The peak amplitude A or Ap
 The peak-to-peak amplitude App = 2A
 The rms (root mean square) amplitude Arms = A/√2
(useful for power calculations involving sinusoidal
waves)

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AC signals
 Sinusoidal signals
 Find the power dissipated in a resistor given the
sinusoidally varying voltage across it
 To this end, calculate the time average of the power
over one period:

 Decibels (abbreviated dB) are used to compare the

amplitude of two signals

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AC signals
 Square wave
 Specified by an amplitude and a frequency (or
period)

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AC signals
 Sawtooth wave
 Specified by an amplitude and a frequency (or
period)

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AC signals
 Triangle wave
 Specified by an amplitude and a frequency (or
period)

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AC signals
 Ramp
 Specified by an amplitude and a ramp time

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AC signals
 Pulse train
 Specified by an amplitude, a pulse width τ , and a
repetition time trep
 The duty cycle of a pulse train is defined as τ/trep

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AC signals
 Noise
 These are random signals of thermal origin or simply
unwanted signals coupled into the circuit
 Noise is usually described by its frequency content

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