As all of you know by now my old friend Bob Simons decided to leave the editorial staff of this magazine. Knowing Bob already for many years before he joined the staff in 2000 I was delighted to have him on board. What I always will remember of him are his punctuality, his thorough and elaborate reviews, and his amazing ability to find and correct all kinds of errors in the … [Read more...]

The Role of Standards The global electronics industry has for decades provided us with an astonishing array of products that have become essential to all aspects of modern life.  Equally amazing is that they have done so in the context of a highly distributed supply chain model with hundreds of suppliers located all over the developed world.  They are able to coordinate … [Read more...]

Thermal fact: the temperature dependence of the specific heat can be very large. Thermal fairy tale: neglecting this dependence can be a serious problem. In my Tech Data column of May 2003 the thermal capacitance was discussed. I will repeat here the most relevant issues before discussing its temperature dependence. The thermal capacity (or heat capacity) Cth is defined … [Read more...]