IECEP FILES

ELECTRONICS

READY?

What is the bandgap

energy for diamonds?
2.5eV

________ allows simplifying a one-port circuit to

a current source in parallel with impedance.

Nortons Theorem

Charge carriers move in semiconductors

via two mechanisms: ________ and ________.

drift and diffusion

The diffusion current density is proportional

to the _________ of the carrier concentration

gradient

The ________ is the minimum energy required

to dislodge an electron from its covalent bond.

bandgap energy

For proper operation, the ________ is forward-biased

and the ________ is reverse-biased.

base-emitter junction,
base-collector junction

The ________ of the bipolar transistor consists of an exponential

voltage-dependent current source tied between the collector and
emitter, and a diode (accounting for the base current) tied
between the base and emitter.

large-signal model

The ________ stage provides a moderate voltage

gain, moderate input impedance, and moderate
output impedance.

common-emmiter

The ___________ provides a voltage gain less than

unity, a high input impedance, and a low output
impedance, serving as a good voltage buffer

emitter follower

MOSFETs operate in the ________ region

if the drain voltage is more than one
threshold below the gate voltage

triode

A measure of the small-signal performance of

voltage-dependent current sources is the
_____________ defined as the change in the output
current divided by the change in the input voltage.

transconductanc
e

The impedance seen looking into the

gate of a MOSFET is equal to ________

infinity

The _______________ topology exhibits a nominal gain

equal to one plus the ratio of two resistors. The
circuit also suffers from a gain error that is inversely
proportional to the gain of the op amp.

Noninverting
amplifier

Placing a bipolar device around an op

amp provides a _____________function

logarithmic

Op amps suffer from various imperfections, including

dc offsets and input bias currents. These effects
impact the performance of various circuits, most
notably,____________.

integrators

Stacking a transistor atop

another forms a _______
structure, resulting in a high
output impedance.

Cascode

Bipolar differential pairs exhibit a ________

input/output characteristic. The tail current can be
mostly steered to one side with a differential input

hyperbolic
tangent

As the frequency of operation increases,

capacitances exhibit a ______________, reducing
the gain. The gain thus rolls off at high signal.

Lower
impedance

To obtain the frequency response, we

must derive the ___________ of the
circuit.

Transfer
function

A capacitance tied between the input and output of

an inverting amplifier appears at the input with a
factor equal to one minus the gain of the amplifier.
This is called _______________.

Miller effect

The ________of a feedback

system can, in principle, be
obtained by breaking the loop,
injecting a test signal, and
calculating the gain as the signal
goes around the loop. It
determines many properties of
feedback systems, e.g., gain,
frequency response, and I/O
impedances.

Loop gain

To avoid oscillation, the gain crossover

frequency must __________the phase
crossover frequency.

Fall below

In low-distortion applications, the

output stage may be embedded in a
_________ to suppress the nonlinearity.

Negative
feedback loop

A push-pull stage operating at high temperatures may

suffer from _____________, whereby the elevated
temperatures allow the output transistors to draw higher
currents, which in turn makes them dissipate even more.

Thermal runaway

The ___________ response provides a sharper

transition than Butterworth at the cost of some ripple
in the passband and stopbands. It contains n
complex poles on an ellipse

chebyshev

A phenomenon that occurs for large reverse voltages

across a pn junction where the free electrons are
accelerated to such high speeds that they can
dislodge valence electrons.

Avalanche
effect

A graph showing the gain or phase

performance of an electronic circuit at
various frequencies.

Bode plot

What do you call the

ohmic resistance of the
semiconductor?

bulk resistance

The metaphor used to describe the

action of an SCR when it is used to
protect a load against supply.

crowbar

A value that tells you how much to reduce the

power rating for each degree above the
reference temperature given on the data sheet.

Derating factor

A condition where the transistor is operating at

the upper end of the load line with a base
current that is one-tenth of the collector current.

hard saturation

The pattern appearing on an oscilloscope

when harmonically related signals are applied
to the horizontal and vertical inputs.

Lissajous
pattern

A connection of two transistors

connected with positive feedback to
simulate the action of a thyristor.

latch

It refers to the average amount of time

between the creation and recombination
of a free electron and a hole.

lifetime

A filter that blocks a signal

with at most one frequency.

Notch filter

A term use to describe the

death of amplification.

oscillation

The voltage that provides the border between the

ohmic region and the constant current region of a
depletion-mode device when the gate to source
voltage is zero.

Pinch off voltage

A basic circuit that a designer can

modify to get more advanced circuits.

prototype

It is a comparator with
hysteresis.

Schmitt trigger

Which of the following special purpose

diode doesnt have depletion layer?

Schottky diode

It is define as a large initial current that

flows through the diode of a rectifier.

surge current

It is defined as a four-layer
semiconductor device that acts as a
latch.

thyristor

It is the value of the input voltage that

switches the output of a comparator.

trip point

It is a device that acts like

two back-to-back-zener
diodes.

varistor

What do you call a thin slice of crystal

used as a chassis for integrated
components.

wafer

What is the other term for

zener effect?

high field emission

It is sometimes called hotcarrier diode.

Schottky diode

A network that employ diodes to remove away a

portion of an input signal without distorting the
remaining part of the applied waveform

clipper

The time required for the minority

carriers to return to the majority carrier
state in the opposite material.

storage time

What is the typical reverse

saturated current of a silicon diode?

10 pA

What is the typical range of reverse

breakdown voltage of silicon diode?

50-1kV

How does minority carriers

produced?

thermally

It is an extremely small amount of

current that exists in a reverse biased
diode.

reverse saturation
current

What does FPGA stands

for?
Field Programmable
Gate Array

It states that the complement of a sum

of variables is equal to the product of
the complements of the variables.

De Morgans
Theorems

The invalid state for RS flip

flop

S=1; R=1

What do you call the number of unique

states through which a counter will
sequence?

modulus

Asynchronous counters
are known as

Ripple counters

The difference between the two opamp input currents is called ______.

Input offset
current

A circuit whose output voltage is

proportional to the area under the
curve of the input voltage.

integrator

A circuit whose output voltage is

proportional to the slope of the input
voltage.

differentiator

A filter response that exhibits an

equiripple amplitude response in the
pass band.

Chebyshev
response

A filter response that exhibits

maximum flatness possible in the pass
band.

Butterworth
response

A ______ is a dcdc converter with an

unregulated input dc voltage and a
regulated output voltage. The
converter circuitry consists of
arrangements of inductor,
capacitors, diodes, and transistors.
The transistors are switched
between the ON state (saturation)
and the OFF state (cutoff) at rates
that typically range from 10 kHz to
40 kHz.

switched-mode
power supply

The time sequence of inputs, outputs and flip-flop

states can be enumerated in a _______. This consists
of four sections labeled the present state, input,
output and next state.

stable state

In switching transistors, what do you call the

time between the changing state of the input
and the beginning of a response in the output?

delay time

The current gain of a Darlington

pair is called ________.

superbeta

In digital design of
combinational logic circuits,
what do you call the term that
refers to the connection of the
output of one device to the input
of a similar device allowing one
device to drive the other in
order to expand the operational
capability?

cascading

In computers, what do you call a relatively small,

high-speed memory that stores the most recently
used instructions or data from the larger but slower
main memory?

cache memory

Across which components of a power

supply does the average (dc) voltage
exist?

Capacitor filter

What is the typical value of quality

factor for crystal oscillators?

20,000

What is the range of gm

for JFETs?

1000 uS to
5000 uS

What is the purpose of an additional RC

filter section in a power supply circuit?

Decrease the ac
voltage component

The region to the left of the pinch-off

locus is referred to as the _____ region.

ohmic

It is the insulating layer of _____ in the MOSFET

construction that accounts for the very desirable
high input impedance of the device.

SiO2

Which type of FET has the

lowest input impedance?

JFET

What is the maximum

power rating for LEDs?

150 mW

Which capacitance dominates

in the reverse-bias region?

Depletion
capacitance

Which capacitance dominates

in the forward-bias region?

Diffusion
capacitance

A high resistance reading in both

forward- and reverse-bias directions
indicate a _______ diode.

open

Which of the following voltages must

have a negative level (value) in any
NPN bias circuit?

VBC

The _____ model suffers from being limited

to a particular set of operating conditions if
it is to be considered accurate.

hybrid

What is the unit of the

parameter ho of a BJT?

siemens