Portal:Electronics

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Modern surface-mount electronic components on a printed circuit board, with a large integrated circuit at the top

Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other electrically charged particles. Electronics is a subfield of electrical engineering which uses active devices such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog signals to digital signals.

Electronic devices have hugely influenced the development of many aspects of modern society, such as telecommunications, entertainment, education, health care, industry, and security. The main driving force behind the advancement of electronics is the semiconductor industry, which in response to global demand continually produces ever-more sophisticated electronic devices and circuits. The semiconductor industry is one of the largest and most profitable sectors in the global economy, with annual revenues exceeding $481 billion in 2018. The electronics industry also encompasses other sectors that rely on electronic devices and systems, such as e-commerce, which generated over $29 trillion in online sales in 2017. (Full article...)

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Credit: commons:User:Angeloleithold
Microprocessor manufactured by photographic process, works submerged in liquid Nitrogen at 4.8 GHz.

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Shannon c. 1950s

Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist and cryptographer known as the "father of information theory". He was the first to describe the Boolean gates (electronic circuits) that are essential to all digital electronic circuits, and he built the first machine learning device, thus founding the field of artificial intelligence. He is credited alongside George Boole for laying the foundations of the Information Age.

As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical numerical relationship, thereby establishing the theory behind digital computing and digital circuits. In 1987, Howard Gardner called his thesis "possibly the most important, and also the most famous, master's thesis of the century", and Herman Goldstine described it as "surely ... one of the most important master's theses ever written ... It helped to change digital circuit design from an art to a science." (Full article...)

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Satellite-TV block-converter circuit board
A low-noise block converter with distributed elements. The circuitry on the right is lumped elements. The distributed-element circuitry is centre and left of centre, and is constructed in microstrip.

Distributed-element circuits are electrical circuits composed of lengths of transmission lines or other distributed components. These circuits perform the same functions as conventional circuits composed of passive components, such as capacitors, inductors, and transformers. They are used mostly at microwave frequencies, where conventional components are difficult (or impossible) to implement.

Conventional circuits consist of individual components manufactured separately then connected together with a conducting medium. Distributed-element circuits are built by forming the medium itself into specific patterns. A major advantage of distributed-element circuits is that they can be produced cheaply as a printed circuit board for consumer products, such as satellite television. They are also made in coaxial and waveguide formats for applications such as radar, satellite communication, and microwave links. (Full article...)

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Consumer showcase

A scanner is a radio receiver that automatically tunes, or scans, two or more discrete frequencies. Generally, scanners cover the non-broadcast radio bands between 30 and 950 MHz using FM. Popular amongst hobbyists, reporters, corporate spies, criminals and lawyers, scanners allow chosen frequencies to be stored in memory banks to allow them to be monitored later and will only stop scanning when there is a signal strong enough to break the radio's squelch setting.

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