Articles

Transistors are the diodes that never quite behave like diodes. A transistor datasheet describes a three-terminal device with gain, saturation, and switching behavior, and the multimeter test that works for a plain diode only takes you part of the way. Still, a surprising amount of transistor diagnosis reduces to one model — the transistor seen … Read more

A pre-biased transistor is a small-signal BJT with its bias resistor built into the package, and it exists to solve a specific board problem: driving a transistor directly from logic without a separate resistor, a capacitor, or a spare layout trace. The package looks like an ordinary transistor, but the datasheet hides two resistors — … Read more

Small-signal diodes are everywhere in a board — logic inputs, I/O protection, level shifters, and switching trains — and their datasheet rarely tells you the thing you actually need to know. The reverse-recovery time is quoted, but what matters in a logic or switching circuit is how the diode blurs or clips a real signal, … Read more

A MOSFET datasheet quotes an RDS(on) at 25 °C, and the part on your board runs at 100 °C — where its on-resistance has climbed to nearly double and the conduction loss has grown by the square of any current increase. The temperature that raises its own resistance is the central reality of MOSFET thermal … Read more

A Schottky diode is supposed to be a low-voltage part — the silicon Schottky’s barrier is low, its reverse voltage is modest, and its leakage climbs with temperature. So the existence of a 1700 V SiC Schottky barrier diode (SBD) looks like a contradiction until the material is changed. Silicon carbide carries the low forward … Read more

Silicon carbide comes in two discrete forms a designer must choose between — the SiC Schottky barrier diode (SBD) and the SiC MOSFET — and the choice is not about which material is better but which device the duty needs. A diode conducts in one direction and blocks the other; a MOSFET switches on command. … Read more

Silicon carbide MOSFETs are presented as the future of power electronics, and a large share of the enthusiasm is not backed by the loss math. The honest picture is that SiC MOSFETs improve exactly three things — conduction loss at high temperature, switching loss at high dv/dt, and voltage class — and every other claim … Read more

A MOSFET and an IGBT can both switch high power, and the choice between them is not about which is “better” but about where the duty sits. The MOSFET wins at moderate voltage and high frequency; the IGBT wins at high voltage and high current where its lower conduction loss and simpler structure take over. … Read more

Lightning does not have to strike your building to damage the electronics inside it. A strike a mile away couples energy into the power lines, the ground, and the structures that carry it to your board through doors a designer never considered — the mains input, the telephone or network line, the ground rod, and … Read more

The safe-operating-area curve is the MOSFET datasheet page that looks like a simple V-I plot and behaves like a set of stacked limits. A single DC operating point sits inside a thermal box; a pulse train can reach far higher current but only for a limited time; and the slope of the boundary lines changes … Read more

A USB port is one of the most ESD-exposed points on a product because it is touched, plugged, and unplugged constantly, bringing a charged human body or cable near the connector. The protection decision is not “does the port need ESD diodes” but “where on the connector do they go, and which lines actually need … Read more

Silicon carbide and gallium nitride are the two wide-bandgap materials changing power electronics, and most explanations start with a physics term that scares off exactly the people who need the answer. The plain-language version is simpler: both materials let a device switch faster, hold more voltage, and run hotter than silicon, and the two differ … Read more