Case Temperature: This is the temperature of the transistor case or package. When you pick up a transistor, you are in contact with the case.…

Cascaded Stages: Connecting two or more stages so that the output of one stage is the input to the next.

Capacitor Input Filter: Nothing more than a capacitor across the load resistor. This type of passive filter is the most common.

Bypass Capacitor: A capacitor used to ground a node.

Butterworth filter: This is a filter designed to produce as flat a response as possible up to the cutoff frequency. In other words, the output…

Bulk Resistance: The ohmic resistance of the semiconductor material.

Buffer Amplifier: This is an amplifier that you use to isolate two other circuits when one is overloading the other. A buffer amplifier usually has…

Bridge Rectifier: The most common type of rectifier circuit. It has four diodes, two of which are conducting at the same time. For a given…

Breakover: When a transistor breaks down, the voltage across it remains high. But with a thyristor, breakdown turns into saturation. In other words, breakover refers…

Breakdown Voltage: The maximum reverse voltage a diode can withstand before avalanche or the zener effect occurs.

Breakdown Region: For a diode or transistor, it is the region where either avalanche or the zener effect occurs. With the exception of the zener…

Bootstrapping: A "following" function in which the inverting input voltage immediately increases or decreases the same amount as the noninverting input voltage initiates.

Bode plot: A graph showing the gain or phase performance of an electronic circuit at various frequencies.

Bipolar Transistor: A transistor where both free electrons and holes are necessary for normal operation.

BIFET Op Amp: An IC op amp that combines FETs and bipolar transistors, usually with FET source followers at the front end of the device,…