Electrical Signals

Electrical signals are waveforms that carries information. It usually refers to a voltage, but the term can be used for voltage or current inside a circuit.

The above referenced graph shows the different properties of an electrical signal. It is shown through a sine wave, but these properties can be applied to any signal with consistent and repeating shapes.

Amplitude

The amplitude of a signal is the maximum voltage reached by the signal. It is measured in Volts, V.

Peak Voltage

Peak voltage is another term used for amplitude. This can be positive or negative.

Peak-peak Voltage

Peak-peak voltage measures the top peak (amplitude) of the signal to the opposite, negative peak of the same signal. It is twice the peak voltage.

Time Period

Time period is the amount of time it takes for a signal to complete one full cycle. Time periods are measured in seconds, but since the periods are usually very short, it's more likely to see units like milliseconds (ms) and micro seconds (µs). 1ms = 0.001s and 1µs = 0.000001s.

Frequency

Frequency measures the number of cycles a signal completes in one second. The unit of measurement for frequency is hertz (Hz). Usually frequencies tend to be high so it is more common to see kilohertz (kHz) and megahertz (MHz) being used. 1kHz = 1000Hz and 1MHz = 1000000Hz.

Frequency and Time Period

There is an inverse relationship between Frequency and Time Period. Frequency = 1 / Time Period Time Period = 1 / Frequency