Perhaps you’ve never used a thermocouple and think you have no reason to know how they work. I disagree. I believe that ten minutes of reading will be well spent. If you already know this much, please read and tell me if I got anything wrong.

Thermocouples are temperature measurement sensors made from at two different metals. They might be elements such as copper or iron or alloys made from a specific mixture of…

Bob Pease died a year ago yesterday. What a loss for us analog heads who struggle to make our circuits work. His wealth of knowledge and experience seemed limitless. His insight and intuitive explanations helped so many engineers understand their circuits better.

I can’t say that I read every one of his columns. He often strayed far off his mainstream analog topics, waxing into lengthy discussions on hiking,…

Designers sometimes find op amp data sheet specifications perplexing because not all performance characteristics have minimum or maximum specifications. You must occasionally rely on “typical” values in the specification table or typical performance graphs. But what does typical mean? How much can it vary?

There are no easy answers and it depends on the specification. Here are some guidelines on three characteristics…

We’ve been looking at stability of op amps, considering how phase shift (or call it delay) in the feedback path can cause problems. Picking up from last week, stability with a capacitive load is a tricky case. If you’re joining us late, you may want to first read the previous two blogs, Why Oscillations and Taming Oscillations.

The trouble maker, open-loop output resistance…