Thank you for the clarification, Sgt.Just to make sure you're understanding it; there are "polarized electrolytic capacitors" and "non-polarized electrolytic capacitors".
The polarized type are by far the most common. When we mention electrolytic caps on here, we're talking about the polarized type, unless we specifically state non-polarized or "NP".
In typical DC applications at moderate voltages, electrolytic capacitors generally can store more energy than other types. They are very popular for many uses, and may be the only practical choice in certain applications, such as some power supplies and compact photographic flash equipment.Thank you, everyone.
Actually I was wrong in a way. Because electrolytic capacitor is in fact used with DC. For AC, there are special kind of electrolytic capacitors.
I have read that 'regular' capacitor can store very little amount of charge in comparison to a electrolytic capacitor and that's the reason they are preferred over 'regular' or 'normal' capacitors. Is this really so? Please let me know. Thank you.
The lowest two silvery-looking capacitors with axial leads look more like polystyrene or some other plastic film capacitors.I genuinely appreciate your help, Adjuster, Bill. I understand it takes much times and effort to help others. Thanks a lot.
1: I think in the linked image, the caps on the left side of the red 'line' are electrolytics, and on the right regular/normal ones, please correct me if I'm wrong:
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/7758/capshn.jpg
Integrated circuits are pre-fabricated circuits, most commonly made on a piece of silicon. (Did you seriously have to ask that?). Some are made to perform a specific and pretty much complete task, like providing all the electronics for a wristwatch.2: In the linked image on the left side of ICs you have transistors:
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/3044/semiconductors.jpg
Are ICs (integrated circuits) pre-fabricated circuits which work as a unit in a circuit in which they are used?
This comes from this wiki page:Electrolytic
The electrolytic rectifier[4] was an early device from the 1900s that is no longer used.
When two different metals are suspended in an electrolyte solution,
it can be found that direct current flowing one way through the metals has less resistance than the other direction.
These most commonly used an aluminum anode, and a lead or steel cathode,
suspended in a solution of tri-ammonium ortho-phosphate.
The rectification action is due to a thin coating of aluminum hydroxide on the aluminum electrode,
formed by first applying a strong current to the cell to build up the coating.
The rectification process is temperature sensitive, and for best efficiency should not operate above 86 °F (30 °C).
There is also a breakdown voltage where the coating is penetrated and the cell is short-circuited.
Electrochemical methods are often more fragile than mechanical methods,
and can be sensitive to usage variations which can drastically change or completely disrupt the rectification processes.
Similar electrolytic devices were used as lightning arresters around the same era by suspending many aluminium cones in a tank of tri-ammomium ortho-phosphate solution.
Unlike the rectifier, above, only aluminium electrodes were used, and used on A.C.,
there was no polarization and thus no rectifier action, but the chemistry was similar.[5]
The modern electrolytic capacitor, an essential component of most rectifier circuit configurations was also developed from the electrolytic rectifier.
Thanks a lot, Bill. I really appreciate your effort to help me. Unfortunately, some of the things I didn't understand because of my very limited knowledge. I'm very naive with this technical stuff. These days I'm trying to grasp the bigger picture of how these things work without getting into very technical details.1. Almost never. There is a fairly simple circuit (simple to build that is, the math is horrendous) called a gyrator, which takes the properties of a capacitor and flips them around where it simulates an inductor. This is only useful for filter and what not, real inductors store power and have properties that make them uniquely useful for things like switching mode power supply regulators (either voltage or constant current). It makes SMPS extremely efficient, much more so than linear versions.
2. Consider this, a 4Gig memory chip has a minimum of 4 billion transistors. It can be multiples of that (12 billion say). A modern CPU is every bit as complex. Each transistor only uses a few pico watts, but when you multiply that extremely low power by the billions you can see why heat sinks and fans are needed. Modern fabrication techniques add some redundancy to these chips, so if a section doesn't work they can switch in the spare section and get their $250 for the part, you will never notice.
3. Unfortunately, marketing has dug its grubby little hands in Mhz and Ghz rating, where it is now a joke. If you read the fine print concerning these numbers they will tell you it "act like" 2.5Ghz, where the actual clock speed of the chip is 1.3Ghz.
Clock speed is pretty simple. Think of the various counters you may have encountered, the square wave that drives them is the clock speed. By making function parallel in CPUs they have figured out various ways of speeding up the internal operations. This is how marketing gets by with lying to the consumer. Back with a CPU chip was rated at 500Mhz this was a true rating.
It goes without saying that they are still working on faster and smaller transistors. This is what is driving the power increases in modern computer. If you go to the Science forum you will see I've started a thread concerning Graphene. If it lives up to its promise it will be the next high speed semiconductor material, with corresponding increases in switching speeds. The ultimate may be superconducting transistors, but who is to say at this point?
Suppose a modern day processor (IC) takes an area of 3 sq. inch, then how much area or space an equivalent circuit of that processor had taken if it were made before IC evolution? A room? Please watch the video in the post #13 from 3.00 onward.How large would an equivalent circuit of a modern day processor (IC), let's say Intel P4, be?
by Aaron Carman
by Jake Hertz
by Aaron Carman