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The thread: The parasitic is the component

A capacitor is a capacitance, a resistance and an inductance, and above a computable frequency the third one is the whole part. A source is an electromotive force and a resistance. The thing nobody draws is usually the thing that decides the answer, and it is always a number.
101001k10k100k1M10M100M1G10Gfrequency (hertz)the ideal operational amplifier1.42 kHz — a gain of 100 from a 1 MHz part is 1% low herea 10 V output at full amplitude7.96 kHz — above this the output cannot move fast enoughthe ideal 100 nF capacitor4.69 MHz — 1.2 nH of lead makes it 10% wrong hereKirchhoff's laws on 10.0 cm3.97 MHz — the board is one degree long hereeach bar is where the model may be used; the rule at its end is the numbersolved, then checked — each boundary from its own modeland one that is not a frequency: 7.3 mV Where the models stop

Every model has an edge

Four assumptions this collection runs on, with the frequency at which each stops being true, on one axis. The ordering is not the one most readers would guess — an ordinary amplifier circuit runs out of model at 1.42 kHz, three thousand times sooner than a ten-centimetre circuit board does.

024681010m100m110current drawn from the source (amperes)terminal voltage, solvedthe ideal source: 9 V at any current1% low at 180 mAthe model9 Vrloadsolved, then checked — the load swept over four decadesthe ideal source is 1% wrong above 180 mA Networks, and how a solve is checked

The source that is not a source

An ideal voltage source holds its voltage at any current, which makes it the flattest line in the subject and the most commonly assumed model in it. Its edge is a current, set by one resistance nobody draws — and past that current the model is not approximately right, it is describing a different object.

10m1.0e+2m1101001k10k10k100k1M10M100M1Gfrequency (hertz)impedance magnitude (ohms)1/(ωC), the symbol's promise10% off above 4.69 MHzinductive above 14.5 MHz30 mΩ — the floor the resistance setssolved, then checked — the part as three elementsa capacitor below 14.5 MHz, an inductor above Frequency, which is the same solve

The capacitor that is an inductor

A hundred-nanofarad capacitor follows 1/(2πfC) for four decades and then turns round and climbs. Above 14.5 MHz it is an inductor, and a decade past that its impedance is ninety-nine times what its capacitance predicts — all of it caused by about a nanohenry of lead and via that nobody chose and nobody drew.

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