What is Electronics Engineering?

Electronics engineering is a field of engineering

which deals with the utilization of active and
passive electronic components to design a variety
of different analog and digital circuits, devices,
and systems.

These devices are implemented in logic circuits,

communication systems, robotics,
microprocessors and Artificial intelligence to
perform useful tasks efficiently and for the
betterment of human beings.

It usually deals with low current voltage

(compared to Electrical Engineering) specifically
between -48v to 48v.

Related Question: What is the main Difference

Between Electrical and Electronic Engineering?
 What are Active and Passive components?

Active components are those electrical

components which require an external source for
its full operation such as Diode, Transistor,
Thyristor etc.

Passive components are those components which

do not need any external source for its function.
Example of passive components is resistor,
capacitor & Inductor.

Related Post: The Main Difference between Active

and Passive Components (Examples)

What is a Resistor?

A resistor is an electronic component with two

terminals, which resist or oppose the electrical
current in its path. It also develops a voltage drop
across its terminals, which depends on the current
flowing through it. This voltage drop is calculated
using the Ohm’s law: V= IR.

What is a Capacitor?

A capacitor is a two-terminal electronic

component, which stores potential energy in the
form of charge. The property or ability of the
capacitor to store charge is called capacitance and
it is measured in Farad. The stored charge q can
be measured using the equation: q = CV

What is an Inductor?

An inductor is an electronic device, which resists

the change in electrical current passing through it.
It stores energy in the form of the magnetic field
when the current pass through it. The voltage
drop across an inductor can be calculated using: V
= L (di/dt).
 What is Practical & Ideal Voltage Source?

A voltage source having some internal resistance

is called a practical voltage source. Due to this
resistance, there is a voltage drop. The supply
voltage of the practical voltage source decreases
with an increase in the current.

If the internal resistance of a voltage source

becomes zero the source is said to be an ideal
voltage source. And its voltage does not decrease
with the increase in current.

Related Post: What is the differences between

E.M.F and Voltage (P.d)

What is Practical & Ideal Current Source?

The ideal current source has infinite internal

resistance. Its current does not depend on its
supply voltage.
A practical current source has a large internal
resistance. Its supply current decreases with the
increase in its supply voltage.

What is Norton theorem?

Any combination of batteries and resistances in a

linear circuit is equivalent to and can be
represented by an ideal current source and a
resistor in parallel. You may follow the step by
step tutorial for solved examples through
Norton’s Theorem.

What is Thevenin theorem?

Any combination of batteries and resistance in a

linear circuit can be represented by a signal
voltage source and a resistor in series. You may
follow the step by step tutorial for solved
examples through Thevenin’s Theorem.
 What is a Transistor?

A transistor is a three-terminal semiconductor

device. It is can be used for amplifying or
switching an electrical signal.

How does the Transistor act as a Switch?

There are three useful regions of operation of a

transistor namely saturation region, cutoff region
& active region.

In the active region, the transistor acts as an

amplifier.

In the saturation region, the transistor acts as a

closed switch.
In the cutoff region, the transistor acts as an open
switch.

So to use a transistor as a switch, it needs to be

operated in the saturation & cutoff region.

What is meant by Clipper and Clamper?

A clipper is a circuit that clips or cutoff voltage

above or below a certain specified level. Positive
clipper cuts off a portion of positive half of a
signal while negative clipper cuts off from the
negative half.

A clamper is a circuit that adds voltage in the

positive or negative half of the signal to a
specified peak voltage. A clamper moves the
whole signal up and down to reach the specified
peak voltage.

What is SCR ?
Silicon controlled rectifier or thyristor is
unidirectional semiconductor device but unlike
diode, it has three terminals Anode, Cathode &
Gate. The SCR can be switched on & off using the
gate input.

What is Diode?

A diode is a unidirectional semiconductor device

with two terminals called Anode & Cathode. A
diode can allow current in only one direction
which is known as forward bias.

Difference between Silicon and Germanium

Diode & why is Silicon diode preferred?

The voltage drop of a silicon diode is 0.7v and that

of germanium diode is 0.3v.
Silicon crystals are more resistant to heat than
germanium.

Silicon diode has a high voltage rating than the

germanium diode.

Silicon diodes are more preferable because silicon

is available in abundant compared to germanium.

What is the main difference between BJT and

FET?

BJT stand for bipolar junction transistor and FET is

the acronym for Field Effect Transistor.

BJT is bipolar that is there is a flow of both

minority and majority charge carriers, while FET is
unipolar that is there is a flow of only majority
carriers.
BJT is controlled using the input current (base
current) while FET is controlled using the input
voltage (Gate voltage).

The input impedance of FET is much higher

compared to BJT.

The three terminals of BJT is emitter, base &

collector while FET is drain, gate & source

What is a Transformer?

A transformer is a static electrical device which

transfers electrical energy from one circuit to
another circuit without any physical connection
instead it uses the principles of electromagnetic
induction. A transformer either increase or
decrease the input voltage & current.
Related Post: What is the difference between
Power Transformers and Distribution
Transformers?

What is Oscillator?

An oscillator is an electronic circuit which

generates a periodic AC signal from a DC source.
An oscillator has no input. The output of oscillator
can be sinusoidal or Square or a triangle wave.

What is Communication?

The transfer of information from one place to

another place using some sort of medium is called
Communication. The information could be in any
form such as a sound or visual or electrical signal
etc.

What is the Baseband Signal?

A signal consisting of significantly lower frequency
(up to 10 kHz) is known as a baseband signal.

Example of the baseband signal is voice (300Hz to

3.5 kHz ), audio (20 Hz to 20 kHz) and a video
signal (0Hz to 4.5 MHz).

The baseband signal cannot be transmitted

directly through the antenna. They are
transmitted using copper wire or fiber optics etc.

Related Post: Introduction to Signals, Types,

Properties, Operation & Application

What is a Bandpass or Passband Signal?

A signal consisting of significantly higher

frequencies (Higher than 100 kHz) is known as
Passband or BandPass signal. Bandpass signal
does not contain any frequency lower than 100
kHz.
Bandpass signal can be directly transmitted
through the antenna.

What is Modulation?

The process in which one of the characteristic

parameter (amplitude, frequency, phase) of the
carrier signal varies linearly with respect to
message signal’s amplitude is called modulation.

Related Post: Modulation – Classification and

Types of Analog Modulation

Why do we need Modulation?

Modulation converts a baseband signal into a

passband signal making it suitable for long
distance communication using an antenna.
Antenna size also depends on the frequency of
the transmitting signal, so the modulation allows
us to use a small size antenna.

Using Modulation we can assign different

frequencies to different signals which allow us to
send multiple signals using the same medium
without interference.

Related Post: Types of Modulation Techniques

used in Communication Systems

What is Demodulation?

The demodulation is a process of extracting the

information or message signal from the received
or modulated signal.

What are the Types of Modulation?

Two main types of modulation are Analog
modulation and Digital modulation.

Analog modulation is further divided into three

types;

Amplitude modulation (AM): DSB-FC, DSB-SC, SSB-

SC, SSB-FC, VSB

Frequency modulation (FM): NBFM, WBFM

Phase modulation (PM):

Whereas, Digital modulation is further divided;

Digital Amplitude modulation: ASK, PAM, QAM

Digital phase modulation: PSK, DPSK, OPSK

Digital Frequency modulation: FSK

Continuous phase modulation: GMSK, MSK, CPFSK

Trellis-coded modulation: PSK, QAM

What is the difference between AM and FM

Modulation?

AM signals can be affected by noise as the

information lies in the amplitude of the signal,
while FM is immune to noise because the
information lies in the frequency of the signal.

The design of Transmitter and receiver for AM is

very simple except for some cases like SSB. While
in FM, the transmitter and receiver have a
complex design.
AM signal can travel long distances as compared
to FM signals.

FM signal’s transmission consume more power as

compared to AM signal’s transmission.

AM signal frequency ranges in KHz while FM signal

frequency ranges in MHz

What is a Repeater in Telecommunication?

As we know that a transmitted signal loses its

power when it travels long distances. To retain
and maintain its full power, the signal is boosted
through a device known as a repeater for long
distance communication.

Usually, a repeater retransmits the identical signal

but it may change the medium or frequency of
the signal according to the need.
 What is the difference between Analog and
Digital signal?

Analog signal has continuous time and continuous

amplitude while digital signal has discrete time
and discrete amplitude.

Difference between Digital and Discrete signal.

Digital signal is a signal which has discrete time

and discrete amplitude.

Discrete signal often known as the discrete-time

signal is a signal, which has discrete time but
continuous (it can have any value) amplitude.

What is Sampling?
Sampling is a process of converting a continuous
time signal into a discrete time signal but not a
digital signal.

What is the Nyquist Criteria for Sampling?

Suppose the maximum frequency of the analog

signal is fmax then the Nyquist criteria suggest
that the sampling rate for this analog signal must
be 2fmax or greater.

What is Aliasing?

Aliasing is a signal effect related to sampling.

When a signal is sampled at a sampling rate less
than the required rate, the signal becomes
indistinguishable from other signals and after
reconstruction, the signal does not look anything
like the original signal. This effect is called
Aliasing.
 What is a Filter?

A Filter is an electronic circuit that removes

specific or unwanted frequency components from
a signal. The types of filters are:

Low pass filter

Bandpass filter
Band stop or band reject filter
High pass filter
Notch filter

What is the Cutoff Frequency?

The cutoff frequency is the point in a filter’s

frequency response where the pass band and stop
band meets. A filter rejects or passes frequency
components below or above cutoff frequency
depending on the type of the filter.
The cutoff frequency is taken at -3db (Half power)
of the maximum amplitude.

What is Passband?

The passband is the range of frequencies that can

be passed through the filter without any
attenuation.

What is Stop band?

The stopband is the range of frequencies that are

attenuated and cannot be passed through the
filter.

What is the Notch filter?

The notch filter is a type of band stop filter with

very narrow stop band.
 What is the difference between the Notch and
Bandstop filter?

Band stop filter rejects a wide range of band while

notch filter rejects a very narrow band. The notch
filter is used for suppressing powerful laser
beams.

What is a Logic Gate?

A digital logic gate is an electronic device which

implements the Boolean function. The boolean
function performs a logical operation on one or
more than one binary numbers.

What are basic Logic Gates?

There are seven basic logic gates. NOT, AND, OR,

NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR gate.
 What are derived Logic Gates?

Derived logic gates are those gate which can be

made from these three basic logic gates NOT,
AND & OR.

NAND, NOR, XOR & XNOR are derived logic gates.

Basic logic can be combined together to make
these gates.

What is a Universal Logic Gate?

A universal gate is a logic gate which can be solely

used to implement any kind of boolean function.
There are two universal logic gates namely NAND
& NOR gate.

What is Positive Logic and Negative Logic?

In digital logic, a Specific level of voltage is
represented by binary numbers i.e.1 or 0 in other
words, True or False respectively.

In positive logic, the High-level voltage is

represented by 1 or True & the low-level voltage
is represented by 0 or False.

In negative logic, the High-level voltage is

represented by 0 or False & the low-level voltage
is represented by 1 or True.

What are Latches and Flip-Flops? Differences

Latch and flip-flop are memory devices with two

stable states. They are used for storing data
(states) in sequential logic. The states are
controlled using one or more than one control
signals. It can store one bit of data.
The main difference between a latch and flip-flop
is that latch is triggered (change states) by the
level of input control signal & the flip-flop is
triggered using the edge of input control signal
known as a clock signal.

So we can say that latches are level-triggered

devices and flip-flops are edge-triggered devices.

Related Post: Digital Flip-Flops – SR, D, JK and T

Flip Flops

What is a Level trigger and Edge trigger?

The level trigger means that the device will

change its state according to the previous state,
next state input and the level (stable 1 or 0) of the
control signal.

Edge trigger means that the device will change its

state according to the previous state, next state
input and the edge (from +ve to –ve called “falling
edge”, from –ve to +ve called “rising edge”) of the
clock signal.

What is Combinational and Sequential logic?

Combinational logic does not have a memory that

is its current output depends only on the current
input.

While sequential logic has a memory and its

current output depends on the previous output
and current input.

What is Ripple Carry Adder and Carry Look

Ahead Adder?

These two Digital binary adders are differentiated

based on the carry determining technique.
In ripple carry adder, the carry bits ripple through
each individual adder while in a carry-look-ahead
adder, the carry bit is determined separately using
a CLA (Carry look ahead) block.

CLA adder operates much faster than ripple adder

as it bypasses many stages.

What is an Op-Amp?

Operational amplifier often known as op-amp is

an active voltage amplifying component. It can
amplify voltage based on the difference of voltage
between its two inputs.

What is Inverting and Non-inverting Amplifier?

When the input voltage signal is applied to a non-

inverting terminal (+ve terminal) of the Op-amp,
the op-amp is said to be in a non-inverting
configuration. Its gain is positive i.e. its output
signal is in-phase with the input signal.

In inverting op-amp configuration, the input signal

is applied to the inverting terminal (-ve terminal)
of an op-amp. The gain of inverting op-amp is
negative and the output signal is 180 degree out
of phase with respect to the input signal.

What is the input and output Impedance of an

Op-Amp?

The input impedance of op-amp between its

differential inputs is very high usually in Mega
Ohms to Tera Ohms (ideally infinite). That is why
the input current of an op-amp is very low (almost
negligible)

The output impedance of an op-amp is very low.