English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

I'm an electronics hobbyist, or I was many years ago. I'd like to make smaller circuits. Are there ICs that have a mix of components or common elements that hobbyists might use? Like resistor/capacitor arrays? Or elements like several op-amps on one IC? Or a RF signal generator? My question isn't so much do they exist but how do I find what I'm looking for among the thousands of ICs on the market. Alternately, how do you go about reducing the size of your circuits? Can you recomend any online tutorials that discuss space efficient circuit design?

2007-02-25 03:51:31 · 4 answers · asked by - 3 in Science & Mathematics Engineering

4 answers

As far as IC's for resistors or capacitors, I would imagine they make them in IC form, but if you go with surface mount components, they use much less space, and you don't have to spend time drilling holes in your boards.

Op Amps: For general purpose, there are TONS of multiple op amps on the market. If you go to National Semiconductors website, and do a search for "quad op amp", this alone will give you several suggestions.

For RF signal generators, I don't know what kind of moodulation you are lokoing for, but National Semiconductor also has a line of Phase Locked Loop synthesizers for RF. The one that immediately comes to mind is the LMX2306. You would still need to send the signal through a voltage controlled oscillator, but the components are minimal for that. The synthesizer cuts down on a lot of board space.
As I suggested above, using surface mount technology whenever possible will drastically decrease the footprint of all of the components on your circuit board.

For space efficient circuit design, it's more of a theory, but there are tools out there that wil lhelp you optimize space. Eagle Cad, for instance (www.cadsoft.de), lets you draw out a schematic and then import that into a board template. You can move the components around untilt hey are how you want them. Design Rule Check's help you keep everything neat and efficient so you don't catch it on fire :-)

A wonderful tutorial for Eagle Cad is at: http://www.hobby-elec.org/e_eagle.htm

You can tell English isn't the authors primary language, but they still wrote it so you can understand it very well.

2007-02-25 04:14:05 · answer #1 · answered by Eric W 2 · 0 0

Yes, they sell packages with an array of components inside. This was the idea when IC's were conceived. You can get IC's with resistors, op-amps, transistors, LED's. Some IC's are completed circuits, such as AM/FM radios, sound storage and playback, etc.

Making IC's is a merge of chemistry, physics, and electronics. Ask the folks at Phillips Semiconductor, Motorola, or Intel.

2007-02-26 00:01:56 · answer #2 · answered by joshnya68 4 · 0 0

whilst eletronic circuits have been initially invented, each and every circuit served basically one function and you had to have dozens (or 1000's) of them in one device. Then they have been given the belief of integrating (or combining) each and every of the circuits directly to a single chip. That replaced into referred to as an intregrated circuit (IC). What one does relies upon on what it replaced into designed to do. The processor on your computing device is an IC. It does the processing for you computing device. The administration for you windsheild wiper is in all possibility an IC, yet serves an exceedingly diverse function. So there is no "straightforward" answer to what an IC does. it fairly is regardless of it fairly is designed to do.

2016-12-14 05:22:29 · answer #3 · answered by keetan 4 · 0 0

The most versatile "general purpose" IC Chip I can think of would have to be the 555 or 556 chip.
I've seen this particular chip used for everything from a pulse switch, function timer, sound synthesizer to an alarm trigger, event counter and much more.
Have fun.

2007-02-25 06:43:33 · answer #4 · answered by LeAnne 7 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers