Tamara Papalias is a principal application engineer at Intersil Corp., Milpitas, Calif., and a professor of electrical engineering at San Jose State University, Calif. She received a BSEE, MSEE, and PhD in RF CMOS design from Stanford University, Calif. Email address: tpapalia@intersil.com
4 results found for Tamara Papalias, displaying items 1 - 4
June 7, 2007[Ideas For Design] High-Speed Full-Wave Rectifier Requires No Diodes, Few Parts
Systems requiring power conversion and level detection employ full-wave rectification, traditionally provided by a diode bridge. But diode bridges consume a significant amount of board space and reduce signal amplitude. An alternative solution involves using separate amplification for the positive and negative half-cycles and a comparator to switch between them. This solution typically requires numerous ICs and can suffer from delay mismatch between the two...
February 1, 2007[Ideas For Design] Adding Feedback Boosts Peak Detector's Precision
The standard way to measure the peak of a signal involves the use of a diode. But if the diode is used alone, the input voltage must be significantly larger than the diode's turn-on voltage to obtain acceptable accuracy. Because turn-on voltages range from 200 mV in germanium diodes to 700 mV in silicon diodes, a simple diode peak detector requires an input voltage of 2 to 7 V, respectively, to achieve a 10% error. You can significantly improve resolution and accuracy in...
April 27, 2006[Ideas For Design] Reduce AC-Couupling Capacitance In Transmission Systems
Communication systems often require large ac output coupling to remove dc voltage on the transmission line and to isolate ground connections between transmit and receive systems. Generally, a feedback network is used to minimize the output capacitance. Yet once the feedback's tradeoffs are understood, the circuit can be reorganized and improved. The final feedback network presented here yields a more compact solution with equivalent performance. The traditional feedback network...
January 19, 2006[Ideas For Design] One Transistor Gives Clean HDTV And NTSC Video Sync Separation
The growing popularity and availability of high-definition television (HDTV) is creating a small revolution in the video industry. New video systems must be capable of handling the standard National Television System Committee (NTSC) composite signal as well as high-definition signals. Also, low-cost and low-power concerns drive system designers to find the simplest solutions. Here's a one-transistor network that lets a single video sync separator operate for both HDTV...
