Amplifier by their physical placement in the signal chain; a preamplifier may precede other signal processing stages, for example. The first practical electrical device which could amplify was the triode vacuum tube, invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest, which led to the first amplifiers around 1912. Today most amplifiers use transistors. The first practical device that could amplify was the triode vacuum tube, invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest, which led to the first amplifiers around 1912. Vacuum tubes were used in almost all amplifiers until the 1960s–1970s when the transistor, invented in 1947, replaced them. Today, most amplifiers
Howard Johnson (electrical engineer) Howard Johnson (electrical engineer) Howard Johnson is an electrical engineer, known for his consulting work and commonly referenced books on the topic of signal integrity, especially for high speed electronic circuit design. He served as the chief technical editor for Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet standardisation, and was recognized by the IEEE as an "Outstanding Contributor" to the IEEE P802.3z Gigabit Task Force. Johnson earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (1978), Masters of Electrical Engineering (1979), and PhD (1982) from Rice University. His dissertation was titled "The design of DFT algorithms". Johnson has significantly raised awareness of analog