I should explain that the posts seen on this first page are simply an introduction to whatever topic in the order I published them – doorways, so to speak. The actual articles are listed on the left sidebar. Saves having to dig through pages of posts to find a particular topic.

Be warned – I am not terse in my writing.

The Wheatstone Bridge is a fairly fundamental means of determining imbalances in resistances – it deserves to be in the toolbox of anyone interested in analog signal processing circuits.
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Why it was just the other day that I was asked how to go about implementing a discrete low-noise amplifier. I was somewhat surprised by the question as it was asked by a analog designer more senior than I, but everyone has different points of focus and low-noise, low-frequency circuits weren’t his specialty.

Maybe I should focus on the question he asked me that wasn’t my specialty…

There are still some very nice parts actively available that have been on the market since the 1980s and I’ll use two of them to demonstrate a 1st-pass discrete low-noise amplifier design.

So … on to the article.

Off I go again – down paths that aren’t part of my supposed “mainstream” career – a non-professor (but doctor non-professor; that’s important at most universities) presenting a 1-semester set of lecture notes on “Basic Circuits”.
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A matter of some involved mathematics for reference. The wavenumber is a critical function for calculating EM fields within finite material properties. Here’s the derivation from basic principles.

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