Low battery detection is important in battery-powered systems to alert the user to replace the battery. In some cases, a secondary level of detection is necessary to alert the system to a critical low battery level.

You can combine a carefully chosen op amp, a low-threshold P-channel MOSFET, and two feedback resistors to make a rectifier circuit with less forward drop than a diode.

Oxygen sensors (O2 sensors) are used in life safety and industrial applications and can be found inside a low power portable, handheld device or integrated into a larger system.

Getting serious about power consumption in small, battery-powered wake-up circuits means dropping the clunky old 555s and baling wire in favor of some modern low-voltage analog building blocks.

When implementing a part such as Touchstone’s TS1103 bidirectional current sense amplifier, it is important to know how much error is present in the output

When the temperature in a room rises to a certain level, it may become an uncomfortable place to be.

When implementing a part such as Touchstone’s TS1100 current sense amplifier, it is important to know how much error is present in the output.

From large panels to harvested microwatts from a few photodiodes, solar power is increasingly prevalent in autonomously powered systems.

Pairing up a 0.65V/1µA nanopower op amp with the low-power Cypress PSoC3 microcontroller and some simple external circuitry can yield a very low current measurement system, suitable for monitoring miniature power harvesting solar cells or a single-cell battery.

Making basic analog circuit functions that operate from a low-voltage battery supply can be tricky. Lack of headroom and the need to minimize supply and leakage currents are usually the biggest challenges.

Boosting the output voltage of common alkaline button-cells to at least 1.8V needed by microcontrollers provides an “always on” standby power source sufficient for low-power oscillator interrupt/sleep state operation.

A wake detector is simply a circuit which wakes up a microcontroller from its low current sleep state, saving power while anticipating an event which must be processed.

In areas where ambient temperatures reach in the high 80 degrees Fahrenheit, such as Central America, South America, Asia, the Middle East, and certain areas in the United States, a portable fan would help.

Prior to the advent of surface-mount technology (SMT), all analog semiconductor products were manufactured using dual-in-line (DIP) packaging, making circuit prototyping quick and easy.

Current-sense amplifiers can monitor battery or solar cell currents, and are useful to estimate power capacity and remaining life.

You can extend the input common-mode voltage range of high accuracy current-sense amplifiers (CSAs) to hundreds of volts by adding a general-purpose dual op amp and a few discrete components.

Overall measurement accuracy in current-sense amplifiers is a function of both gain error and amplifier input offset voltage performance.