Signal conversion in solid-state transducers

Abstract The price/performance ratio of existing input and output transducers is seriously lagging behind that of sophisticated micro-electronic components. The challenge to reduce this gap has stimulated new and increasingly more important research efforts. In this paper the signal-conversion processes in information-processing systems are analysed. The transducers can be easily categorized by considering them in the light of six signal domains and the conversions between these domains. The most important physical and chemical effects are very briefly described and arranged to facilitate the search for an effect suitable for the design of a particular transducer.