Various components
An electronic component is a basic electronic element usually packaged in a discrete form with two or more connecting leads or metallic pads.
Components are intended to be connected together, usually by soldering to a printed circuit board, to create an electronic circuit with a particular function (for example an amplifier, radio receiver, or oscillator). Components may be packaged singly (resistor, capacitor, transistor, diode etc.) or in more or less complex groups as integrated circuits (operational amplifier, resistor array, logic gate etc.)
Very often electronic components are mechanically stabilized, improved in insulation properties and protected from environmental influence by being enclosed in synthetic resin
Components may be Passive or Active:
- Passive components are those that do not have gain or directionality.
[Young EC, The Penguin Dictionary of Electronics, Penguin Books, 1988] In the Electric industry they are called Electrical elements or electrical components
- Active components are those that have gain or directionality, in contrast to passive components, which have neither. They include Semiconductors (Solid State Devices) and Thermionic Valves (Vacuum Tubes)
List of electronic components
Many electronic components are on the market today. Here is a list of some of them.
Wires and cables
Devices to conduct electrical current
Terminals and connectors
Devices to make electrical connection
Cords
Cables with connectors or terminals at their ends
Switches
Components that may be made to either conduct (closed) or not (open)
Resistors
Components that dissipate electrical energy as heat.
- See the Transducer section below for resistors used to sense environmental conditions (Thermistor, Photoresistor, RTD...)
- See the Protection section below for resistors used for current or voltage limiting (MOV, Inrush Limiters...)
Protection devices
Passive components that protect circuits from excessive currents of voltages
- While these components technically belong to the Wire, Resistor and Vacuum classes, they are grouped here based on their use.
- Active components that perform a protection function are in the Semiconductor class, below.
Capacitors
Components that store electrical charge in an electrical field
Magnetic (inductive) devices
Electrical components that use magnetism
Networks
Components that use more than one type of passive component
Piezoelectric devices, crystals, resonators
Passive components that use piezoelectric effect
- Components that use the effect to generate or filter high frequencies
- Crystal - Is a quartz crystal used to generate precise frequencies (See the Modules class below for complete oscillators)
- Ceramic resonator - Is a ceramic crystal used to generate semi-precise frequencies
- Ceramic filter - Is a ceramic crystal used to filter a band of frequencies such as in radio receivers
- Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filters
- Components that use the effect as mechanical Transducers.
Power sources
Sources of electrical power
Transducers, sensors, detectors
- Transducers generate physical effects when driven by an electrical signal, or vice-versa.
- Sensors (detectors) are transducers that react to environmental conditions by changing their electrical properties or generating an electrical signal.
- The Transducers listed here are single electronic components (as opposed to complete assemblies), and are passive (see Semiconductors and Tubes for active ones). Only the most common ones are listed here.
- Audio (see also Piezoelectric devices)
- microphone - Magnetic, electrostatic (capacitive), piezoelectric and others. Convert audio to electrical signal
- loudspeaker - Magnetic or piezoelectric device to generate full audio
- Buzzer - Magnetic or piezoelectric sounder to generate tones
- Position, motion
- Force, torque
- Strain gauge - Piezoelectric or resistive - detects squeezing, stretching, twisting
- Accelerometer - Piezoelectric - detects acceleration, gravity
- Thermal
- Magnetic field (see also Hall Effect in semiconductors)
- Humidity
- Electromagnetic, light
Electronic control components with no moving parts.
Active components
A device which conducts electricity in only one direction.
- Optoelectronics
- Opto-Isolator, Opto-Coupler, Photo-Coupler - Photodiode, BJT, JFET, SCR, TRIAC, Zero-crossing TRIAC, Open collector IC, CMOS IC, Solid State Relay (SSR)
- Opto Switch, Opto Interrupter, Optical Switch, Optical Interrupter, Photo switch, Photo Interrupter
- LED Display - Seven-segment display, Sixteen-segment display, Dot matrix display
Display technologies
Current:
- Filament lamp (indicator lamp)
- Vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) (preformed characters, 7 segment, starburst)
- Cathode ray tube (CRT) (dot matrix scan (eg computer monitor), radial scan (eg radar), arbitrary scan (eg oscilloscope)) (monochrome & colour)
- LCD (preformed characters, dot matrix) (passive, TFT) (monochrome, colour)
- Neon (individual, 7 segment display)
- LED (individual, 7 segment display, starburst display, dot matrix)
- Flap indicator (numeric, preprinted messages)
- Plasma (dot matrix)
Obsolete:
- Filament lamp 7 segment display (aka \'minitron\')
- Nixie
- Pixie
- Trixie
- Dekatron (aka glow transfer tube)
- Magic eye indicator
- Penetron (a 2 colour see-through CRT)
Active devices that operate in vacuum
Microwave
Optical
Discharge devices
Obsolete:
Assemblies, modules
Multiple electronic components assembled in a device that is in itself used as a component
Prototyping aids
Mechanical accessories
Other
Obsolete:
- Carbon amplifier
- Carbon arc (negative resistance device)
- Dynamo (historic rf generator)
Standard abbreviations
Component name abbreviations widely used in industry:
- AE: aerial, antenna
- B: battery
- BR: bridge rectifier
- C: capacitor
- CRT:cathode ray tube
- D: diode
- F: fuse
- GDT: gas discharge tube
- IC: integrated circuit
- J: wire link
- JFET: junction gate field-effect transistor
- L: inductor
- LCD:Liquid crystal display
- LDR: light dependent resistor
- LED: light emitting diode
- LS: speaker
- M: motor
- MCB: circuit breaker
- Mic: microphone
- Ne: neon lamp
- PCB: printed circuit board
- PU: pickup
- Q: transistor
- R: resistor
- RLA: RY: relay
- SCR: silicon controlled rectifier
- FET:field effect transistor
- MOSFET:Metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor
- TFT:thin film transistor(display)
- VLSI:very large scale integration
- DSP:digital signal processor
- SW: switch
- T: transformer
- TH: thermistor
- TP: test point
- Tr: transistor
- U: integrated circuit
- V: valve (tube)
- VC: variable capacitor
- VFD: vacuum fluorescent display
- VR: variable resistor
- X: crystal, ceramic resonator
- XTAL: crystal
- Z: zener diode
See also
References
- Allied\'s list of classes of components
- Newark\'s list of classes of components
- PartNumber.com, a utility to assign part numbers to electronic components.
- Digikey\'s list of all classes of components
- Otxi\'s extensive list of various electronic components
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
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