Some Electrical Engineering FAQ

Here are the collections of some of the FAQs on electrical engineering. These technical questions might be extremely trivial and fundemental, but in fact, most of following facts we might just simply accept them as the truth but never or seldom thinking about the mechanisims and reasons behind. These questions might be overwhelmingly "trivial" that textbooks and professors even do not talk about them, but when you are actually curious about the answers behind them, either you do not dare to ask professors or your colleagues, or they in fact are not crystally clear on the answers to those questions either. Usually they may just tell you, "oh just use these facts, they are just simply true" or some other excuses. I will say, this is very "unhealthy" to an individual. So, please if you are like me, you are welcome to share the questions like this with me. Again, do not be fooled by the so-called "authority".

The following questions are asked by myself and I manage to find the satisfied answers from the Internet. Hope these resources will be helpful for you.


Analog Electronics


  • Q: We are taught in class that for an operational amplifier, it is desirable to have very high input impedance and low output impedance, but why?
    A: Stack Exchange - Electrical Engineering, Answers from "Dave Tweed"
  • Q: (A really classic and interesting one) Where do VCC, VDD, VEE, and VSS come from?
    A: Stack Exchange - Electrical Engineering, Answers from "Olin Lathrop"
  • Q: Why the characteristic impedance is 50-ohm?
    A: Stack Exchange - Electrical Engineering, Answers from "embedded.kyle"
  • Q: Why a feedback loop is desired in op-amp circuits?
    A: Stack Exchange - Electrical Engineering, Answers from "Jason Morgan"
  • Q: Rectified diode, Schottky diode, and Zener diode, differences?
    A: eTechnophiles
  • Q: Resistors in feedback loop in voltage buffer?
    A: Stack Exchange - Electrical Engineering, Answers from "Dave Tweed" and "nibot"
  • Q: Why do we short the input when calculating the output impedance?
    A: Stack Exchange - Electrical Engineering, Answers from "The Photon"