For the longest time, Zener diode regulators have been one of those circuits that have been widely shared and highly misunderstood. First timers have tried to use it to power up their experiments and ...

The Zener diode is similar to a general-purpose signal diode which consists of a silicon PN junction. It is a special kind of diode in which current is allowed to flow in the forward direction in the ...

Some of my recent columns discuss the functions and advantages of zener-diode references (references 1, 2, and 3). Although zener diodes are stable and precise voltage references, they require high ...

[Kevin Darrah] wanted to make a simple 3.3V regulator without using an integrated circuit. He wound up using two common NPN transistors and 4 1K resistors. The circuit isn’t going to beat out a cheap ...