Advanced Science and Technology in Japan

Report on:
“Analog Electronic Circuit Technology”
(Prof. Takahiro INOUE)

Alwin Melkie Sambul / 097d8688

Laboratory of Medical Bioengineering
Kumamoto University

1. Introduction
The lecture focused on the overview of analog electronic circuit technology by explaining
some major inventions and discoveries on this technology through the history, from its birth to the
present. The overview started from the birth of electrical circuit, showing the invention of Leyden
jar (1940s), electrophorus by Volta (1746), the presentation of Ohm law by a German physicist
Georg Ohm (1826), and then goes through various other inventions until the most recent
technologies of low voltage and low power circuits. This report will describe some key technologies
in the field of analog electronic circuit, enlist some fields upon which the technologies can be
applied, proposing some ideas for business model using the analog electronic circuit technology
and giving some comments/opinion on the lecture.

2. Key Technologies

Electrical Circuit & Electronic Devices

Electrical circuit is a closed loop interconnection of various electrical elements. The history of
electrical circuit go back hundreds of years ago when Kleist and Musschenbroek invented Leyden
jar, a device that "stores" static electricity, in year 1740s. It was the original form of the capacitor. It
was then followed by the invention of battery by Volta in 1800, Ohm's law (1826) and Kirchhoff's
laws (1847). Many explorations on electromagnetic phenomenon had led to the discovery of self-
induction (1830) by Henry, mutual-induction (1831) by Faraday and the completion of
electromagnetic field equation by Maxwell (1864). The concept of impedance had been proposed
by Heaviside (1887). Many inventions such as: oscillating tube, wave filter, reactance theorem,
automatic gain control circuit, negative feedback amplifier and operational amplifier had been
discovered during 1900s.
Electronic devices are devices that accomplishes their purpose electronically. Many
inventions of various concept in electrical circuit had led to the invention of electronic devices, such
as: telephone by Bell(1876), light bulb by Edison (1883), gas-filled bulb by Langmuir (1913),
regenerative receiver by Armstrong (1914) and etc. Transistor was invented in 1947 at Bell labs and
followed by the invention of transistor junction by Shockley in 1950. Dummer proposed the
concept of Integrated Circuit (IC) in 1952 and then followed by the invention of the world's first IC
by Kilby in 1958.
Negative & Positive Feedback Amplifier
Negative feedback amplifier is an amplifier in which a fraction of the output is combined
with the input so that a negative feedback opposes the original signal. The applied negative
feedback improves performance (gain stability, linearity, frequency response, step response) and
reduces sensitivity to parameter variations due to manufacturing or environment. Because of these
advantages, negative feedback is used in this way in many amplifiers and control systems. The
negative feedback amplifier was invented by Harold Stephen Black in 1937.
Positive feedback occurs when the feedback signal is in phase with the input signal. This
means that the feedback signal will add to or "regenerate" the input signal. The result is a larger
amplitude output signal than would occur without the feedback. Edwin Armstrong invented and
patented the regenerative circuit in 1914.

Operational Amplifier
An Operational amplifier (or Op-Amp) is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier
with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. An op-amp produces an output voltage
that is typically hundreds of thousands times larger than the voltage difference between its input
terminals. Op-amps are among the most widely used electronic devices today, being used in a vast
array of consumer, industrial, and scientific devices.

Circuit Miniaturization
In electronics, miniaturization is the creation of ever-smaller scales of electronic product and
devices. It has been becoming a continuing trend in the production of various electronic devices
since the introduction of Integrated Circuit (IC) by Kilby in 1958. Around 50 years before that, the
electronics industry had been dominated by vacuum tube technology. The invention of transistor
vastly replaced vacuum tube as transistors were smaller, more reliable, longer lasting, less heat and
power than vacuum tube. But since the transistor still had to be interconnected to form electronic
circuits, led to more expensive and time-consuming tasks, the implementation of IC in 1958 has
opened a new chapter in the history electronics. Integrated circuits are used in almost all electronic
equipment in use today and have revolutionized the electronics world.
One of the recent challenges of circuit miniaturization are to develop a semiconductor
technology with low voltage and low power consumption. The objective is not only miniaturizing
the circuit, but also to reduce the supply voltage while increasing the operating frequency.

3. Fields of Application
There are many fields in which analog circuit technology can be applied. Here are some of them:
a) Communication
Various aspects of analog technology has been used in both wired and wireless
communication devices. For example: many radio signals are simply too high frequency to
work with existing digital circuits. Radio modulators, demodulators, mixers, transmitters,
and receivers are still analog instead of digital.
b) Computing
An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of
physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the
problem being solved. Although digital computation is extremely popular, some research in
analog computation is still being done, especially related with education, industrial and
robotics sectors.
 c) Control
The term “Control" is always been understood as both monitoring and control. Monitoring
(or sensing) various physical characteristics such as temperature, humidity, physical
position, light level etc. are among the domain of analog circuit technology, using
sensor/transducer circuits to convert those characteristics into electrical signal. Control
refers to managing some degree of influence over items such as motors, lights, relays and
other elements. Various control functions take place in industry, home appliances,
entertainment, security, transportation and etc.

4. Business models using analog circuit technologies

The idea is to create a set of basic analog circuits simulator for educational purposes. As the
targeted user are from elementary to junior school grade kids, the objective of this product is to
introduce the basic principles of electronics to children by giving them the real experience of
creating and playing around with some basics electronic circuits. The type of circuits should be
chosen among the simplest and most basic analog circuit and are made using basic electronics
elements. Some user-friendly explanation can be given using books or video to accompany the
product.

5. Comments on the lecture

The lecture was very interesting and well structured, explaining the historical overview of
analog electronic circuit technology and its most recent issues. Honestly, I had less interesting on
analog electronics topics when I first studied it in my undergraduate study. But after following this
lecture in which Prof.Inoue explored the development of analog electronics technology historically,
I found it very encouraging and motivating me to have more understanding on this technology. I
enjoy the lecture so much.

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Reference:
• Prof.Inoue's lecture slides
• Lou Frenzel, “Electronics Explained”, Elsevier 2010.
• “Analogue electronics”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogue_electronics
• “Analog computer”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogue_computer
• “Integrated Circuit”, http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/integratedcircuit.htm