TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter is for the reader who has little knowledge of electronics. It is intended to provide an overview of the subject so that discussions in later chapters about the operation and use of automotive electronics control systems will be easier to understand.
The chapter discusses electronic devices and circuits having applications in electronic automotive instrumentation and control systems. Topics include semiconductor devices, analog circuits, digital circuits, and fundamentals of integrated circuits.
All of the active circuit devices (e.g., diodes and transistors) from which electronic circuits are built are themselves fabricated from so-called semiconductor materials. A semiconductor material in pure form is neither a good conductor nor a good insulator. The ability of a material to conduct electric current is characterized by a property called conductivity. A metal such as copper, which is a good conductor, has a relatively high conductivity. An insulator such as mica has relatively low conductivity. A semiconductor material has conductivity somewhere between that of a good conductor and that of a good insulator. Therefore, this material (also called semiconductor material) and devices made from it are semiconductor devices (also called solid-state devices).
There are many types of semiconductor devices, but transistors and diodes are two of the most important in automotive electronics. Furthermore, these devices are the fundamental elements used to construct nearly all modern integrated circuits. Therefore, the discussion of semiconductor devices will be centered on these two.
The earliest transistors were made from germanium, but today silicon is by far the...
