Kurt Tomlinson's Blog

Travel, Code, and Engineering


Buck Converter Concepts Part 3 of 3: Switching Regulators

Buck converters work by switching on and off at very high frequencies. Examine the schematic below. The circle on the left is a voltage source at say 12V. The rectangle on the right is a load that we want to power with say 3V. Let's call the bottom of the load ground and define that voltage as 0V.

electrical-engineering | 2015.03.01 15:55 | Kurt Tomlinson

Buck Converter Concepts Part 2 of 3: LC Low Pass Filters

The LC low pass filter has just two components: an inductor and a capacitor. The inductor and capacitor are connected in series. The input to the filter is fed into the inductor, the output is taken from the node between the inductor and the capacitor, and the capacitor's other terminal is tied to ground.

electrical-engineering | 2015.02.22 07:04 | Kurt Tomlinson

Buck Converter Concepts Part 1 of 3: Frequency Content of Square Waves

Take a square wave with a duty cycle of 0<x<1, a frequency of f, and an amplitude of A. (The minimum value of this square wave is 0.) This signal can be decomposed into its frequency components by Fourier analysis. The frequency components of a signal are just the collection of sine waves that when added together give you the original signal.

electrical-engineering | 2015.02.15 11:53 | Kurt Tomlinson

Japan's Bunny Island

Never heard of Bunny Island? Its real name is Ōkunoshima. It's an island filled to the brim with cuddly "wild" bunnies. How many? Hundreds!

travel | 2015.02.08 19:04 | Kurt Tomlinson

PRBS (Pseudo-Random Binary Sequence)

In my line of work as a semiconductor test engineer, pseudo-random binary/bit sequences are very useful. They're random-ish streams of bits that can be easily and reliably reproduced using very simple hardware or software. Any semiconductor that can be used to transmit information can be tested at a functional level with a PRBS. Send a PRBS to the device you're testing, tell the device to repeat it back to you, and compare what you received to what you sent.

electrical-engineering | 2015.02.04 01:00 | Kurt Tomlinson
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