Overview The study of any field of inquiry starts with nomenclature: defining the terms specific to that field. ‘That is exactly what we did in the preceding chapter. We introduced and defined electric current, voltage, power, open and closed circuits, and dependent and independent voltage and current sources, among others. Now, we are ready t0 acquire our first set of circuit-analysis tools, which will enable us 10 analyze a variety of different types of circuits, We limit our discussion to resistive circuits, namely those circuits containing only sources and resistors. (In future chapters, ‘we will extend these tools to circuits containing capacitors, inductors, and other clements.) Our new toolbox includes three simple, yet powerful laws—Ohm's law and Kirchhoff’s voltage and current laws—and several circuit simplification and transformation techniques. You will learn how to divide the voltage (using voltage dividers) and current (using current dividers), how to combine resistors in series and parallel combinations, how to analyze resistive sensors using ‘Wheatstone bridges, how to use diodes to control the direction of a current, plus how (0 use a light-emitting diode (LED) as 4 visual output, warning light, tc. You will also learn how to use Mulisim to simulate and analyze your circuits, and how to build a circuit on a circuit board and measure its properties using your computer via the NT myDAQ. 2-1 Ohm’s Law > The conductivity 6 of a material is a measure of how easily electrons can drift through the material when an external voltage is applied across it. Resistivity (p) isthe inverse (1/0) of conductivity. Materials are classified as conductors (primacily metals), semiconductors, or dielectrics (insulators) according to the ‘magnitudes of their conductivities. Tabulated values of expressed in units of siemens pet meter (S/m) are given in ‘Table 2-1 for a select group of materials. The siemen is the inverse of the ohm, S = 1/0, and the inverse of «is called the resistivity p, (Om. en 45 ‘Table 2-1 Conductivity and resistivity of some common materials at 20°C. Material Conductivity Resistivity p (sim (am) ‘Conductors Iver 6.17107 1.62108 Copper S81 x10 17x10 Gold 410% 107 2.44 10-® Aluninum 382x107 2.62 10-* Iron 103x107 9.71 x 10-8 Mercury (liquid) — 1.04% 10° 9.58 10-8 Semiconductors Carbon (graphite) 7.14 108 1.40 10-5 Pare germanium — 213 oar Pure silicon 43510-1230 10° Insulators Paper ~ 10 ~10!0 Glass ~10-? ~ 102 ‘Teflon ~33x10-9 — ~3x 102 Poreelain ~ 10" ~ 10!" Mica ~ 10-8 ~ 10'S Polystyrene ~ 1078 ~ 1016 Fused quartz ~ 10-7 ~ 10" ‘Common materials Distilled water 55x 10° 1.8 105 Drinking water ~ 510-7 ~ 200 Sea water 48 03 Graphite 14x 0$ 714 10° Rubber 110-8 tao! Biological tissues Blood ~1s ~067 Muscle ~ 1s ~067 Fat ~ 01 10. Which is a measure of how well a material impedes the flow of current through it, The conductivity of most metals is on the ‘onder of 10° Sim, which is 20 or more orders of magnitude greater than the conductivity of typical insulators. Common, semiconductors, such as silicon and germanium, fall in the in-between range on the conductivity scale, ‘The values of & and p given in Table 2-1 are specific46 November 13,2014 CHAPTER 2 _ RESISTIVE CIRCUITS {0 room temperature at 20 °C. In general, the conductivity fof a metal increases with decreasing temperature. At very low temperatures (in the neighborhood of absolute zero), some conductors become superconductors, because their ‘conductivities become practically infinite and their corresponding resistivities approach zero, To learn more about superconductivity, refer to Technology Brief 2 on page 22, 2-11 Resistance > The resistance R of a device incorporates two factors: (a) the inherent bulk property of its material to conduct (or impede) current, represented by the conductivity & (or resistivity p), and (b) the shape and size of the device. < For a longitudinal resistor (Fig 2-1), R is given by (2), 22 where (i the length of the device and A is its eross-seetional area. In addition to its direct dependence on the resistivity p, Ris directly proportional to ¢, which is the length of the path thatthe current has to flow through, and inversely proportional to A, because the larger A is, the more electrons can drift through the material Every element of an electric circuit has a certain resistance associated with it. This even includes the wires used to connect devices to each other, but we usually treat them Figure 2-1 Longitudinal rsistor of conductivity 0, length & and cross-sectional area A. ‘Table 2-2 Diameter d of wires, according to the American Wire Gauge (AWG) system. AWG Size Designation Diameter d (mm) 0 83 2 65 4 32 6 41 10 26 4 16 Is Lo 20 os like zero-resistance segments because their resistances are so ‘much smaller than the resistances of the other devices in the circuit. To illustrate with an example, let us consider a 10.em Tong segment of one of the wire sizes commonly found in circuit boards, such as the AWG-18 copper wire, According to Table 2-2, which lists the diameter d for various wire sizes, as specified by the American Wire Gauge (AWG) system, the AWG-18 wire has a diameter d = 1 mm, Using the values, specified for f and d and the value for p of copper given in, ‘Table 2-1, we have ee sol PaO apap ~ NP MIO OSE 210% 2.2mQ. > Thus, R of a 10 cm long AWG-18 copper wire is on the order of milliohms. If the wire segment connects to circuit elements with resistances of ohms or larger, ignoring the resistance of the wire would have hho significant impact on the overall behavior of the circuit, < ‘The preceding justification should be treated with some degree of caution. While it is rue that a piece of wire ‘may be treated like a short circuit in the majority of circuit configurations, there are certain situations for which such an assumption may not be valid, One obvious example is, when the wire is very long, as in the case of a kilometers long electric power-transmission cable, Another is when very thin wires or channels with micron-size diameters are used in, ‘microfabricated circuit,241_Ohm’sLaw November 13,2014 _47 Resistive elements used in electronic circuits are fabricated jin many different sizes and shapes to suit the intended application and requisite circuit architecture. Discrete resis- tots usually are cylindrical in shape and made of a carbon composite, Hybrid and miniaturized circuits use film-shaped ‘metal or carbon resistors, In integrated circuits, resistive elements are fabricated through a diffusion process (see ‘Technology Brief 6 on page 22). Figure 2-2 displays photographs of three types of resistors, amongst which the tubular-shaped resistor is the most familiar. Resistors are generally marked with a banded color code to denote the resistor’s specifications: (a) 4Band color code: by by by bs Note that a wider spacing exists between by and bs than between the earlier bands, The resistor value is given by R= (bib) x 10s, with the values of bj, bz, by, and bs specified by the color code shown in Fig, 2-2. For example, PEE 1=25x 10" 10% 5 + 10% 2. (b) S-Band color code: by by bs by Bs Inthis case R= (bybabs) x 10" bs. (©) 6-Band color code: by by by by bs bg ‘This code adds one more piece of information in the form (of bg which denotes the temperature coefficient of the resistor, ‘measured in parts-per-million/ °C. For some metal oxides, the resistivity p exhibits a strong. sensitivity to temperature. A resistor manufactured of such ‘materials is called a thermistor (Table 2-3), and it is used {or temperature measurement, temperature compensation, and related applications. Another interesting type of resistor isthe piezoresistor, which is used as a pressure sensor in many household appliances, automotive systems, and biomedical devices, More coverage on resistive sensors is available in ‘Technology Brief 3 on page 722. ‘Certain applications, such as Volume adjustment on ar may call for the use of a resistor with variable resistance. ‘The rheostat and the potentiometer are two standard types of variable resistors in common use. The rheostat (Fig. 2-3(a)] ‘Table 2-3 Common resistor terminology: ———— Taz : In compliance with the passive sign convention, current enters a resistor at the “+” side of the voltage across it, Dap = Vo Dy + R - 0-5 j- 2 > a An ideal linear resistor is one whose resistance R is constant and independent of the magnitude of the current flowing through it in which case its -D response isa straight line (Fig. 2-4(a)). In practice, the HD response of a real linear resistor is indeed approximately linear, as illustrated in Fig. 2-4(b), so long as / remains within the linear region defined by —ina 10 fous. The slope of the curve is the resistance R, Outside this range, the response deviates from the straight-line model. When we use Ohm's law as expressed by Eq. (2.3), we tacitly assume that the resistor is being used ints linear range of operation Some resistive devices exhibit highly nonlinear i-v characteristics. These include diode elements and light-bulb filaments, among others. Unless noted otherwise, the common, use of the term resistor in circuit analysis and design usually refers to the linear resistor exclusively. ‘The flow of current in a resistor leads to power dissipation in the form of heat (or the combination of heat and light in the cease of a light bulb’s filament). Using Eq, (2.3) in Eq, (1.9) provides the following expression for the power p dissipated | Linear region (b) Real resistor Figure 2-4 i-v responses of ideal and real resistors. in a resistor: p=iv ow). 4 als. > The power rating of a resistor defines the maximum, continuous power level that the resistor can dissipate ‘without getting damaged. Excessive heat can cause ‘melting, smoke, and even fire. For electric circuits with a fixed voltage (such as a 120 V