There are so many great examples of open source these days. I find more and more that I can accomplish just about any task, either online or in the real world, with the aid of open source, especially software. For a relatively recent grad, I appreciate any opportunity to save money for the future. This could easily be the same case if I ever have the opportunity to start a business, as not many entrepreneurs relish the thought of paying thousands for an enterprise solution software package (such as Oracle). Let’s look at a few examples:

When I started writing on my blog, I promised myself that it would not be about personal issues (“my roommate won’t pickup his socks!”) or rants about everyday happenings (“The people at the grocery store are slow!”). But I feel that reviewing the past 25 years of my life is good from a historical perspective and in terms of this blog so readers know more about where I’m coming from.

I am constantly amazed at how lucky I have been. I was born a white middle class male to loving parents and into a great family that encouraged my academic and intellectual achievement. I was also born in the United States of America, in an English speaking community that was voted one of the safest in America throughout my childhood. I’d say this already puts me in the top .1% of the world in terms of being dealt some great cards. Add to that the opportunities I’ve had with the school I was able to attend and the jobs I successfully interviewed for and I can’t think of many better situations. On top of all that, I work at a great company with lots of educational opportunities and I do something I really enjoy.

My friend Trevor has an intriguing post about methods of mapping the brain. This is of interest to me because of how I have been reading “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil. Trevor talks about research into “seeing” water flow in the brain, as opposed to glucose or electrical signals or bloodflow. It’s a really cool idea to help understand how the brain works and how it could help humans relate to the world around them.

I have a friend who alerted me to a company out in New Mexico known as Solar Automation. They don’t make solar panels; rather, they make the equipment to make solar panel arrays. However, what I find most intriguing about the company is their concept of Micro-Factories. In the case of Solar Automation, the basic idea is that a small team of people are capable of creating solar arrays by soldering the tiny wires with non-lead solder. This same concept could be expanded to many other applications, including mechanical or auto assembly, textiles, food preparation (already done at caterers, really).

I recently had a high school friend visit and while watching the Olympics and having some beers, conversation turned to China (and the rest of the world). I know, I know, I’ve recently talked about the Olympics and China and such; But this is different. The conversation moved to energy and how it relates to national security, which I also have read about recently in a trade journal. Basically he brought up the astute point that renewable energy needs to be our number one priority in the coming years. We’re not talking 20 or 30 years…we’re talking 2 or 3. Really, it’s that important.

The other morning I heard a great story on NPR about people in China and their interest in basketball. I was really interested to learn how they believed basketball allowed them to express their individuality. One of them dreamed out loud of being able to dunk and how this was their ultimate dream of freedom.

Aside from the question of how many different ways there are to dunk, it got me thinking about Chinese culture and how it has contributed to their success over the past 8 years or so. It is no secret that the Chinese culture, and specifically the government, stresses conformity. One might think that this would hinder the technological progress in China, but they are quickly becoming a technology leader in the world (it is important to note that a good deal of the continued success of China is companies outside the country driving progress…but not all of it). Add to that how more and more design work is being offshored, due to the low cost and higher supply of design engineers. A slew of questions have popped up in my mind when I think about these kinds of things.

As promised, this post is a follow up post to explain the real-world behavior of an op amp. Here we will continue to anthropomorphize op amps in order to better understand their behavior and what they “want” to do. Also, we will look at some more complicated (but common) op amp configurations so that they are easily recognizable. Let’s begin.

First, let’s look at the symbol for the op amp:

Things get old. Things eventually do not work anymore. Even the best engineers cannot design a system for part failures (unless they have triple redundant systems, like NASA). It is for this reason, I have decided to document on my blog the tune up of my Wurlitzer 200A electric piano (seen below) as opposed to the usual analog issues in the workplace today.

I mentioned this piano in my post about keeping it simple, namely not replacing EVERY component, only the ones that require an upgrade/replacement. It is a famous piano that can be heard in many types of music, spanning rock, soul, jazz and more.  Similar to the Fender Rhodes, the Wurly can be characterized by a darker, more over-driven sound and a built in vibrato (constructed from a simple oscillating circuit).

How does an op amp work? How do I use an op amp

These are questions that I have asked at two periods in my life. The first time was in my introductory circuits class and around that time I really didn’t care (beer was a priority). The second time was when I dove headfirst back into analog electronics for my new job and had to re-teach myself a lot of things. I really appreciate the opportunity I had to re-learn everything because the second time around, I think I got it right.

Keep it simple, stupid

The KISS principle is pertinent in nearly every aspect of my life. I can’t begin to relay the number of times I have had to convince myself to step back from a situation–engineering or otherwise–and ask what the simplest solution is. Be it electronics at work or at home, renewable energy or even my investing, I encounter the KISS principle over and over again.

A tenet of the ever-expanding chip market is that the more functions that were once done with discrete components and can now be moved into the confines of a chip, the better. This is done either directly on silicon or by setting multiple pieces of silicon next to each other in the plastic packaging and wiring them together. This idea started a long time ago but is being to manifests itself in many different ways. One of the earliest examples is the op-amp. True, the form and function of the op-amp is different than the cascodes and the vacuum tubes that preceded it; but the idea of bringing the capacitor (to control the slew rate) and the transistors required to drive the differential inputs and the output all into the same package were just the first examples of combining discrete elements into an easily re-usable device was new. Another driving force was the idea that this device can be mass produced and sold at a lower cost thanks to economies of scale. More recently we have seen more and more functions brought into the chip packaging. One such example is the FPGA, which not only reduces the need for external logic gates in some bulky package, but it also makes it reconfigurable. And now, predictably enough, this same concept is being brought into play with analog! There are now chip manufacturers that make Field Programmable Analog Arrays (FPAA). Usually this consists of an op-amp, some analog switches and passive components, such as resistors and capacitors (for filtering). The device can be “programmed” to select any number of functions, with the potential for ever increasing complexity (though signal integrity would be a concern of mine). The final example is a product offering called the uModule from Linear Technology, with others doing similar things. It is an interesting concept because they are bringing in even more discrete components, such as inductors on a DC-DC converter; inductors are typically set outside the chip because of size concerns.