There are a vast number of sources of practical information available to provide detailed reviews of topics that may be unfamiliar with you as you begin to move from the textbook into a laboratory where you are responsible for developing your project design, verification, prototyping, and test. These information sources provide you with the "real-world" knowledge necessary to proceed effectively. You are encouraged to draw upon these information sources as part of your activities developing project prototypes. Some examples are given below. These do not represent endorsements of the products of the manufacturers but instead are examples that we have found useful.

Agilent Technologies:

We recommend that you visit the Agilent Web site. Look under the "Technical Support" heading. There, you will find links to application notes (follow the links to "Test and Measurement." There are literally hundreds of application notes available. Several are specific to a given instrument but others provide general information on using a generic type of information.

Tektronix:

We also recommend that you visit the Tektronix Web site. Look under the "myTek Resources" link on the left side of the home page (Jan 2008). There you will find on-line tutorials on general topics such as logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, real-time spectrum analyzers, etc. You will also find there links to several sources of information on topics such as test & measurement, communications systems, and video testing.

Keithley Instruments:

You may not be familiar with the instrument products from Keithley Instruments but they provide highly sensitive instruments (e.g., picoammeters, nanovoltmeters) along with other strong product lines. Look under the "Products and Services" link and you will find a voltage measurement guide; handbooks on low level measurements, semiconductor measurements, data acquisition, etc; and CDs on topics such as nanotechnology, MIMO & OFDM for wireless communications, etc.

These are reprentative sources of technical information from instrument manufacturers. Other sources appear at other manufacturers, in trade journals (a list will be added to this site) and other locations. Of course, there is always the use of Web search engines to locate information.