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What you need to know about internal ESD protection on integrated circuits
Most of the integrated circuits that I work with are electrostatic discharge (ESD)-sensitive. In spite of all the care we engineers take, it is nearly impossible to eliminate static electricity...
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Has distortion got your amplifier down? Get more bandwidth!
When excessive harmonic distortion appears in the output of an amplifier and you can’t find the source of the distortion in the obvious places, insufficient bandwidth is the next place to...
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The great compromise: voltage references
Have you ever had to pick between two of your favorite desserts and thought to yourself, “Why can’t I have both?” Well, the same thing happens to engineers every day when designing with programmable...
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How to select an optimal clocking solution for your FPGA-based design
High-performance oscillators and clock-generator integrated circuits (ICs) are pervasive in virtually all of today’s systems. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) find their place in a large variety...
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RF sampling: clocking is the key every time
** This is the ninth post in an RF-sampling blog series that appears monthly on Analog Wire. **In my previous post, I discussed the advantages and flexibility of radio frequency (RF) sampling data...
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Inductive sensing: rethink the button
Inductive-sensing technology is causing designers to rethink many problems that have existed for decades. Today, I will show you a modern approach to a button design that does not use any moving...
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Setting the new standard: High-definition audio is changing the way we listen
High-definition audio is becoming easier to access through a number of new devices and services that offer the highest-quality sound and content. You have likely heard of the ongoing wireless...
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Memory switches bring reliability and speed to clouding computing
Cloud computing is becoming popular in today’s computing environment by storing data and programs over the Internet instead of on local computer's hard drives. Mobility, agility, security, cost, and...
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Differential pairs: how an equalizer solves insertion-loss impairment
In T.K. Chin’s blog post, “Differential pairs: what you really need to know,” he talked about the requirements for a differential pair. In the real world, differential pairs are implemented with either...
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Reduce power consumption in your capacitive-sensing applications
Capacitive sensing is an effective technique for applications ranging from proximity detection and gesture recognition to liquid level sensing. Depending on the application, there will be different...
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Roundtable audio loudness and quality evaluations for smart amplifier solutions
Making transducers sound as natural as possible is quite a challenge for audio tuners. While subjective evaluations help designers fine-tune sound, they face several challenges, such as visual cues...
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Selecting the right inductor for ultra-low distortion Class-D audio amplifiers
Selecting the inductance value for the output filter of a Class-D audio amplifier is always a critical design decision. With next-generation ultra-low-distortion Class-D amplifiers, selecting an...
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Designing a 25G system: 5 tips to balance power, performance and price
When transitioning from 10G to 25G for next-generation servers and switches, hardware design engineers have to satisfy competing objectives: minimize data latency, maintain or reduce power consumption,...
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Disentangling RF amplifier specs: amplifier spot noise vs. noise figure
In the world of high-speed amplifiers, noise is commonly represented one of two ways. For radio frequency (RF)-oriented amplifiers, such as low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), radio frequency power amplifiers...
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RS-485 basics: the RS-485 receiver
The last post in this series described the structure and basic operation of the RS-485 driver. In this post, I’ll discuss the RS-485 receiver and the relevant parameters in the RS-485 standard.RS-485...
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Using error amplifiers to remove error and variance
When I started working on designing a pulse width modulator for my LED driver, there were two things I knew from the start: that the light-emitting diode (LED) driver needed a pulse-width modulated...
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How to select a temperature sensor probe
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to select a temperature sensor probe. The answer really depends on your application and the environment where the sensor will operate. In this post I’ll...
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Protect your application processors from short circuit at 9V
Smartphones are moving to larger screens, with higher resolution, faster modems and longer battery life. All of these features drain the battery in our phones – and we need them to recharge fast.As...
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How to select an audio amplifier for products with internal or external speakers
Selecting the right amplifier will always involve a trade-off between system type, cost and performance. Device performance includes audio performance, thermal performance and feature set. In this...
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How to estimate the phase noise of a PLL with basic datasheet specifications
If you’re like me, you may find some specifications in a typical datasheet hard to read because they include an implied convention with which you aren’t familiar. One such specification for many RF...
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