Chapter 3 – Passive Components

Passive components are ubiquitous in circuit design. Because of this, their performance is often taken for granted; provided they are operated within their power, voltage, current, and environmental ratings. This is reasonable, since after millions of accumulated operational years of experience, there is little left for their manufacturers to discover. But there are still many applications where specifying and applying passive components needs to be handled with some care. This chapter provides a detailed overview of passive components (resistors, inductors, and capacitors), highlighting how they are made, different types, key characteristics, and how they should be effectively used in circuit design.