Electronics

The field of electronics is the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically charged particles in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. The design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems is part of the fields of electronic engineering, and the hardware design side of computer engineering.

Electronic systems

One way of looking at an electronic system is to divide it into the following parts:

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• Inputs - Electronic or mechanical sensors (or transducers), which take signals (in the form of temperature, pressure, etc.) from the physical world and convert them into current/voltage signals.
• Signal processing circuits - These consist of electronic components connected together to manipulate, interpret and transform the signals.
• Outputs - Actuators or other devices (also transducers) that transform current/voltage signals back into useful physical form.

One example is a television set. Its input is a broadcast signal received by an antenna or fed in through a cable. Signal processing circuits inside the television extract the brightness, colour and sound information from this signal. The output devices are a cathode ray tube that converts electronic signals into a visible image on a screen and magnet driven audio speakers.

Related Topics:
Television - Brightness - Colour - Sound - Cathode ray tube - Image

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