Passive Components#

Deceptively simple parts. Resistors, capacitors, and inductors look straightforward in a schematic — two terminals, one symbol, one equation. In practice, every passive has parasitic behavior that matters in some context, and knowing when to care about it is half the battle.

What This Section Covers#

• Resistors — Ideal vs. real, tolerance and tempco, noise, and series/parallel beyond the textbook.
• Capacitors — Dielectric types, ESR, leakage, frequency behavior, and why 10 uF isn’t always 10 uF.
• Inductors — Stored energy, saturation, and why inductors misbehave at the worst moment.
• Transformers — Coupled inductors: isolation, voltage conversion, impedance matching, and the real-world limits of magnetic coupling.