Electronic Components may be broadly classified as

• Active components.
• Passive components.

Active elements are those, which can perform the operations like amplification, rectification, etc. by themselves. They include most of the semiconductor components like diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, etc.

The passive elements are those which by themselves are not capable of amplifying or processing an electrical signal. They include components like resistors, capacitors, inductors, etc.

Passive components.

• Resistor
• Capacitor
• Inductor
• Switch
• Transformer

Active components.

• Diode
• Transistor
• FET
• Op-Amp

Logic Gate Family

• Inverter
• AND
• OR
• XOR
• XNOR
• NAND
• NOR
  

Voltage Sources

• DC Voltage Source
• AC Voltage Source

Measuring Equipments

• Multimeter
• Cathode Ray Oscilloscope

A commonly used test platform for electronic circuits and components is a bread board. Its appearance is shown in the figure below. The holes in the bread board are organised as rows and columns. The leads of the components can be inserted into these holes. The group of holes consisting of five holes, are connected to each other. And the two rows on the outer edge form two separate connected series. So the leads inserted into a single column of holes is equivalent to a junction of those leads in a circuit. This eliminates the need of soldering of components for testing purposes. Circuit connection using bread board is shown in the multimeter application section.

A general purpose bread board strip