Sink: If you visualize water disappearing down a kitchen sink, you will have the general idea of what engineers or technicians mean when they talk…

Silicon Unilateral Switch (SUS): Another name for a Schockley diode. This device lets current flow in only one direction.

Silicon Controlled Rectifier: A thyristor with three external leads called the anode, cathode, and gate. The gate can turn the SCR on, but not off.…

Silicon: The most widely used semiconductor material. It has 14 protons and 14 electrons in orbit. An isolated silicon atom has four electrons in the…

Shunt Switch: A type of JFET analog switch where the JFET is in shunt with the load resistor.

Short-Circuit Protection: A feature of most modem power supplies. It usually means the power supply has some form of electronic current limiting that prevents excessive…

Short-Circuit Output Current: The maximum output current that an op amp can produce for a load resistor of zero.

Short: One of the common troubles that may occur. A short occurs when an extremely small resistance is approaching zero. Because of this, the voltage…

Seven-Segment Display: A display containing seven rectangular LEDs.

Series Switch: A type of JFET analog switch where the JFET is in series with the load resistor.

Series Regulator: This is the most common type of linear regulator. It uses a transistor in series with the load. The regulation works because a…

Semiconductor: A broad category of materials having four valence electrons and electrical properties between those of conductors and insulators.

Self-bias: The bias you get with a JFET because of the voltage produced across the source resistor.

Second Approximation: An approximation that adds a few more features to the ideal approximation. For a diode or transistor, this approximation includes the barrier potential…

Schottky diode: A special-purpose diode with no depletion layer, extremely short reverse recovery time, and the ability to rectify high-frequency signals.