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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The Sinclair Sovereign was a high-end calculator introduced by Clive Sinclair's company Sinclair Radionics in 1976. It was an attempt to escape from the unprofitable low end of the market, and one of the last calculators Sinclair produced. Made with a case of pressed steel that a variety of finishes, it cost between £30 and £60 at a time when other calculators could be purchased for under £5. A number of factors meant that the Sovereign was not a commercial success, including the cost, high import levies on components, competition from cheaper calculators manufactured abroad, and the development of more power-efficient designs using liquid-crystal displays. Though it came with a five-year guarantee, issues such as short battery life limited its usefulness. The company moved on to producing computers soon afterwards.
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...)
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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...)
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The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are smartphones that were designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the eighth generation of the iPhone, succeeding the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, and were announced on September 9, 2014, and released on September 19, 2014. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus jointly were themselves replaced as the flagship devices of the iPhone series by the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus on September 9, 2015. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus include larger 4.7 and 5.5 inches (120 and 140 mm) displays, a faster processor, upgraded cameras, improved LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity and support for a near-field communications-based mobile payments offering.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus received positive reviews, with critics regarding their redesign, specifications, camera, and battery life as being improvements over previous iPhone models. However, aspects of the design of iPhone 6 were also criticized, including plastic strips on the rear of the device for its antenna that disrupted the otherwise metal exterior, and the screen resolution of the standard-sized iPhone 6 being lower than other devices in its class. The iPhone 6 sold extremely well, making it the best-selling iPhone model and the most successful smartphone to date. (Full article...)
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Air stripline is a form of electrical planar transmission line whereby a conductor in the form of a thin metal strip is suspended between two ground planes. The idea is to make the dielectric essentially air. Mechanical support of the line may be a thin substrate, periodical insulated supports, or the device connectors and other electrical items.
Air stripline is most commonly used at microwave frequencies, especially in the C band. Its advantage over standard stripline and other planar technologies is that its air dielectric avoids dielectric loss. Many useful circuits can be constructed with air stripline and it is also easier to achieve strong coupling between components in this technology than with other planar formats. It was invented by Robert M. Barrett in the 1950s. (Full article...)
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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...)
HDMI implements the ANSI/CTA-861 standard, which defines video formats and waveforms, transport of compressed and uncompressed LPCM audio, auxiliary data, and implementations of the VESA EDID. CEA-861 signals carried by HDMI are electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by the Digital Visual Interface (DVI). No signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used. The Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) capability allows HDMI devices to control each other when necessary and allows the user to operate multiple devices with one handheld remote control device. (Full article...)
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Analogue filters are a basic building block of signal processing much used in electronics. Amongst their many applications are the separation of an audio signal before application to bass, mid-range, and tweeterloudspeakers; the combining and later separation of multiple telephone conversations onto a single channel; the selection of a chosen radio station in a radio receiver and rejection of others.
Passive linear electronic analogue filters are those filters which can be described with linear differential equations (linear); they are composed of capacitors, inductors and, sometimes, resistors (passive) and are designed to operate on continuously varying analogue signals. There are many linear filters which are not analogue in implementation (digital filter), and there are many electronic filters which may not have a passive topology – both of which may have the same transfer function of the filters described in this article. Analogue filters are most often used in wave filtering applications, that is, where it is required to pass particular frequency components and to reject others from analogue (continuous-time) signals. (Full article...)
The image method of filter design determines the properties of filter sections by calculating the properties they would have in an infinite chain of identical sections. In this, the analysis parallels transmission line theory on which it is based. Filters designed by this method are called image parameter filters, or just image filters. An important parameter of image filters is their image impedance, the impedance of an infinite chain of identical sections. (Full article...)
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The circuit topology of an electronic circuit is the form taken by the network of interconnections of the circuit components. Different specific values or ratings of the components are regarded as being the same topology. Topology is not concerned with the physical layout of components in a circuit, nor with their positions on a circuit diagram; similarly to the mathematical concept of topology, it is only concerned with what connections exist between the components. There may be numerous physical layouts and circuit diagrams that all amount to the same topology.
Strictly speaking, replacing a component with one of an entirely different type is still the same topology. In some contexts, however, these can loosely be described as different topologies. For instance, interchanging inductors and capacitors in a low-passfilter results in a high-pass filter. These might be described as high-pass and low-pass topologies even though the network topology is identical. A more correct term for these classes of object (that is, a network where the type of component is specified but not the absolute value) is prototype network. (Full article...)
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The LS3/5A (each element pronounced separately, without the stroke) is a small studio monitor loudspeaker originated by the BBC for use by outside broadcast vans to ensure quality of their broadcasts. The speaker concept set out transparent and natural sound as the goal, and the achievement of the result is widely acknowledged.
The BBC granted licences to a small number of British firms, who first manufactured the product in 1975. The product underwent a change in 1987 due to consistency issues in manufacturing, and again in around 2003 when original parts from KEF ran out. Upwards of 60,000 pairs of the speaker have been sold. Reviewers have recognised its enormous importance as a bookshelf design. (Full article...)
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The Naim NAIT (acronym for "Naim Audio Integrated amplifier") is an integrated amplifier from the British hi-fi manufacturer, Naim Audio. The original NAIT is one of the most recognisable pieces of hi-fi equipment ever made. Hi-fi critic Lucio Cadeddu recognised its legendary status, referring to it as "one of the most controversial and famous integrated amps in the history of HiFi".
Having already made their name producing solid-state pre-amplifier and power-amplifier separates, Naim launched a low-powered integrated amplifier that embodies the qualities of its amplifiers, aimed at cost-conscious audiophiles. (Full article...)
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Constant k filters, also k-type filters, are a type of electronic filter designed using the image method. They are the original and simplest filters produced by this methodology and consist of a ladder network of identical sections of passive components. Historically, they are the first filters that could approach the ideal filter frequency response to within any prescribed limit with the addition of a sufficient number of sections. However, they are rarely considered for a modern design, the principles behind them having been superseded by other methodologies which are more accurate in their prediction of filter response. (Full article...)
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The ZenFone 6 is a 2019 Android-based smartphone that was manufactured, released, and marketed by Asus. It is the only release in Asus' sixth-generation ZenFone lineup and directly succeeds the ZenFone 5Z. Asus chairman Jonney Shih unveiled the ZenFone 6 on 16 May 2019 in Valencia, Spain, and was released in Spain the following day.
The ZenFone 6 has a larger 6.4-inch (160 mm) display, a faster processor, and upgraded cameras than the ZenFone 5Z. The ZenFone 6's flip-up camera module doubles as a front-facing camera. It is the first mobile device Asus released after restructuring its smartphone division in late 2018. The ZenFone 6 was released in the Indian market as the "Asus 6Z". (Full article...)
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The NAD 3020 is a stereo integrated amplifier by NAD Electronics, considered to be one of the most important components in the history of high fidelity audio. Launched in 1978, this highly affordable product delivered a good quality sound, which acquired a reputation as an audiophile amplifier of exceptional value. By 1998, the NAD 3020 had become the most well known and best-selling audio amplifier in history. (Full article...)
Joule's laws are a set of two laws concerning the heat produced by a current and the energy dependence of an ideal gas to that of pressure, volume, and temperature, respecetively. Joule's first law, also known as the Joule effect, is a physical law expressing the relationship between the heat generated by the current flowing through a conductor. The heating effect of conductors carrying currents is known as Joule heating, named for James Prescott Joule. It is expressed as:
Where Q is the heat generated by a constant current I flowing through a conductor of electrical resistanceR, for a timet.
Joule's second law states that the internal energy of an ideal gas is independent of its volume and pressure, depending only its temperature.
An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) is a special type of light-emitting diode in which the emissive layer comprises a thin-film of certain organic compounds. The emissive electroluminescent layer can include a polymeric substance that allows the deposition of suitable organic compounds, for example, in rows and columns on a flat carrier by using a simple "printing" method to create a matrix of pixels which can emit different colored light. Such systems can be used in television screens, computer displays, portable system screens, advertising and information, and indication applications etc. OLEDs can also be used in light sources for general space illumination.