How do digital devices like laptops and smartphones increase and decrease speaker volume on the physical level?
In: 7
They have electronic potentiometers.
Basically, a potentiometer is a variable resistor. An electronic potentiometer is a bank or resistors with switches, which can connect one or more resistors into the circuit to give the required resistance.
The switches can be transistors, as these can be switched on and off electronically quickly and easily with no degradation to the signal.
Typically, the whole combination of control circuitry, switches and resistors can be built into a single chip.
Latest Answers