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...)
There is a critical value of transformer coupling coefficient at which the frequency response of the amplifier is maximally flat in the passband and the gain is maximum at the resonant frequency. Designs frequently use a coupling greater than this (over-coupling) in order to achieve an even wider bandwidth at the expense of a small loss of gain in the centre of the passband. (Full article...)
Image 2
Foster's reactance theorem is an important theorem in the fields of electrical network analysis and synthesis. The theorem states that the reactance of a passive, lossless two-terminal (one-port) network always strictly monotonically increases with frequency. It is easily seen that the reactances of inductors and capacitors individually increase with frequency and from that basis a proof for passive lossless networks generally can be constructed. The proof of the theorem was presented by Ronald Martin Foster in 1924, although the principle had been published earlier by Foster's colleagues at American Telephone & Telegraph.
The theorem can be extended to admittances and the encompassing concept of immittances. A consequence of Foster's theorem is that zeros and poles of the reactance must alternate with frequency. Foster used this property to develop two canonical forms for realising these networks. Foster's work was an important starting point for the development of network synthesis. (Full article...)
Image 3
Sinclair Executive Type 1
The Sinclair Executive was the world's first "slimline" pocket calculator, and the first to be produced by Clive Sinclair's company Sinclair Radionics. Introduced in 1972, the calculator was produced in at least two versions with different keyboard markings; a variant called the Sinclair Executive Memory was introduced in 1973.
Its small size was made possible by pulsing current to the Texas Instruments TMS1802 "calculator on a chip" integrated circuit, reducing the power consumption more than tenfold. The Executive was highly successful, making £1.8 million of profit for Sinclair and winning a Design Council Award for Electronics. (Full article...)
Image 4
The first-generation iPad (/ˈaɪpæd/; EYE-pad) (retrospectively referred to unofficially as the iPad 1 or original iPad) is a tablet computer designed and marketed by Apple Inc. as the first device in the iPad lineup of tablet computers. The device features an Apple A4SoC, a 9.7 in (250 mm) touchscreen display, and, on certain variants, the capability of accessing cellular networks. Using the iOS operating system, the iPad can play music, send and receive email and browse the web. Other functions, which include the ability to play games and access references, GPS navigation software and social network services can be enabled by downloading apps.
The device was announced and unveiled on January 27, 2010, by Apple founder Steve Jobs at an Apple press event. On April 3, 2010, the Wi-Fi variant of the device was released in the United States, followed by the release of the "Wi-Fi + 3G" variant on April 30. On May 28, 2010, it was released in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
Waffle-iron filters are particularly suitable where both a wide passband, and a wide stopband free of spurious transmission modes, are required. They also have a high power-handling capability. Applications include suppressing the harmonic output of transmitters and the design of wide-band diplexers. They are also used in industrial microwave manufacturing processes to prevent the escape of microwave radiation from the microwave chamber. Filters with an analogous design are now appearing in photonics, but, due to the higher frequency, at a much smaller scale. This small size allows them to be incorporated into integrated circuits. (Full article...)
Image 6
The primary line constants are parameters that describe the characteristics of conductive transmission lines, such as pairs of copper wires, in terms of the physical electrical properties of the line. The primary line constants are only relevant to transmission lines and are to be contrasted with the secondary line constants, which can be derived from them, and are more generally applicable. The secondary line constants can be used, for instance, to compare the characteristics of a waveguide to a copper line, whereas the primary constants have no meaning for a waveguide.
The constants are conductor resistance and inductance, and insulator capacitance and conductance, which are by convention given the symbols R, L, C, and G respectively. The constants are enumerated in terms of per unit length. The circuit representation of these elements requires a distributed-element model and consequently calculus must be used to analyse the circuit. The analysis yields a system of two first order, simultaneous linear partial differential equations which may be combined to derive the secondary constants of characteristic impedance and propagation constant. (Full article...)
Image 7
The Quad Electrostatic Loudspeaker (ESL) is the world's first production full-range electrostatic loudspeaker, launched in 1957 by Quad Electroacoustics, then known as the Acoustical Manufacturing Co. Ltd. The speaker is shaped somewhat like a home electric radiator curved slightly on the vertical axis. They are widely admired for their clarity and precision, but known to be difficult speakers to run and maintain.
The original ESL, in production between 1957 and 1985, has been hailed in Sound & Vision as one of the most important speakers of the 20th century. It was succeeded in 1981 by the ESL-63, which remained in production until 1999. As of 2013, Quad maintains four electrostatic speakers in its range. (Full article...)
Image 8
The Yamaha NS-10 is a loudspeaker that became a standard nearfield studio monitor in the music industry among rock and pop recording engineers. Launched in 1978, the NS-10 started life as a bookshelf speaker destined for the domestic environment. It was poorly received but eventually became a valuable tool with which to mix rock recordings. The speaker has a characteristic white-coloured mid–bass drive unit.
Technically, it is known as a speaker that easily reveals poor quality in recordings. Recording engineers sought to dull its treble response by hanging tissue paper in front of it, resulting in what became known as the "tissue paper effect" – a type of comb filtering. The NS-10 has been used to monitor a large number of successful recordings by numerous artists, leading Gizmodo to refer to it as "the most important loudspeaker you never heard of". (Full article...)
Image 9
A signal travelling along an electrical transmission line will be partly, or wholly, reflected back in the opposite direction when the travelling signal encounters a discontinuity in the characteristic impedance of the line, or if the far end of the line is not terminated in its characteristic impedance. This can happen, for instance, if two lengths of dissimilar transmission lines are joined.
This article is about signal reflections on electrically conducting lines. Such lines are loosely referred to as copper lines, and indeed, in telecommunications are generally made from copper, but other metals are used, notably aluminium in power lines. Although this article is limited to describing reflections on conducting lines, this is essentially the same phenomenon as optical reflections in fibre-optic lines and microwave reflections in waveguides. (Full article...)
Numerically controlled oscillators offer several advantages over other types of oscillators in terms of agility, accuracy, stability and reliability. NCOs are used in many communications systems including digital up/down converters used in 3G wireless and software radio systems, digital phase-locked loops, radar systems, drivers for optical or acoustic transmissions, and multilevel FSK/PSK modulators/demodulators. (Full article...)
Image 11
The JBL D44000 Paragon is a one-piece stereo loudspeaker created by JBL that was introduced in 1957 and discontinued in 1983; its production run was the longest of any JBL speaker. At its launch, the Paragon was the most expensive domestic loudspeaker on the market.
Designed by Arnold Wolf from a concept elaborated by Richard Ranger, it is almost 9 feet (2.7 m) long and requires over a hundred-man hours of hand-finishing by a team of dedicated craftsmen. Resembling less a conventional loudspeaker than an elegant sideboard, it is a landmark product for the company that was sought after by the well-heeled and by celebrities. With an estimated total production of about 1,000 units, it is highly sought after by collectors to this day. (Full article...)
Image 12
Row hammer (also written as rowhammer) is a computer security exploit that takes advantage of an unintended and undesirable side effect in dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) in which memory cells interact electrically between themselves by leaking their charges, possibly changing the contents of nearby memory rows that were not addressed in the original memory access. This circumvention of the isolation between DRAM memory cells results from the high cell density in modern DRAM, and can be triggered by specially crafted memory access patterns that rapidly activate the same memory rows numerous times.
The Samsung Galaxy S III (unofficially known as the Samsung Galaxy S3) is an Androidsmartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2012, it had sold more than 80 million units overall, making it the most sold phone in the S series. It is the third smartphone in the Samsung Galaxy S series.
It is distinguished from its predecessor by its larger and higher-resolution screen, higher storage options, a larger battery, and a video camera with stereo audio recording for a spatial effect on headphones and external speakers. While the picture and video resolutions of the camera stayed the same, its launching speed and shutter lag improved. (Full article...)
Image 14
The Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York was a lighting and electrical distribution company organized in 1878. The company held the patents for the first practical incandescent electric lamp and electrical distribution system of incandescent electric lighting. They also held a patent for an electric meter to measure the amount of electricity used. The inventions were those of Albon Man and William E. Sawyer. They gave the patent rights to the company, which they had formed with a group of businessmen. It was the first company in the world formally established to provided electric lighting and was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.
Man, an attorney from New York City, supplied money for experimentation to Sawyer, an electrical engineer. This partnership developed into the Electro-Dynamic Light Company that brought in other investors that became partners. Sawyer devised a unique electrical distribution system where electrical power could be obtained anywhere in the city from an electrical generator with the turn of a switch to light up electric lamps to produce glowing light like a gas lamp. It was unique in that it produced this power without consumers having to maintain local galvanic batteries and at a fraction of the cost of producing the same lighting as from gas lamps. Other features of the system were that safety devices were built in to prevent the early destroying of the other electric lamps in the circuit should there be a power surge due to a lamp burning up early and leaving the distribution circuit. The patents for the Man and Sawyer system were in place before any other electrical companies had similar systems. (Full article...)
Image 15
m-derived filters or m-type filters are a type of electronic filter designed using the image method. They were invented by Otto Zobel in the early 1920s. This filter type was originally intended for use with telephone multiplexing and was an improvement on the existing constant k type filter. The main problem being addressed was the need to achieve a better match of the filter into the terminating impedances. In general, all filters designed by the image method fail to give an exact match, but the m-type filter is a big improvement with suitable choice of the parameter m. The m-type filter section has a further advantage in that there is a rapid transition from the cut-off frequency of the passband to a pole of attenuation just inside the stopband. Despite these advantages, there is a drawback with m-type filters; at frequencies past the pole of attenuation, the response starts to rise again, and m-types have poor stopband rejection. For this reason, filters designed using m-type sections are often designed as composite filters with a mixture of k-type and m-type sections and different values of m at different points to get the optimum performance from both types. (Full article...)
For most purposes, the vacuum tube has been replaced by the much smaller, less power-hungry, and less expensive transistor, either as a discrete device or in an integrated circuit. However, tubes are still used in specialized applications, such as in high-end audio systems and high power RF transmitters. Cathode ray tubes are still used as a display device in television sets and computer monitors (although they face serious competition from LCD and plasma displays), and magnetrons are the source of microwaves in microwave ovens.
... that in 2019, Chinese electronics company Xiaomi posted a video of their third-quarterly financial report featuring a parody of the anime song "Renai Circulation"?
Electronic paper is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of regular ink on paper. Unlike a conventional flat panel display, which uses a backlight to illuminate its pixels, electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity or using processor power, while allowing the paper to be changed. Electronic paper should not be confused with digital paper.