As each area of technology with a potential for significantly impacting any major segment of the electronics industry evolves, it often is accompanied by the development of a succession of new circuits. Each new circuit indeed appears different, employing different components in differing configurations, and claims an assortment of distinct features of "improved performance. " Without a considerable investment of laboratory time to construct, evaluate, and compare each candidate circuit, it usually is difficult to realistically appraise the relative merits of one approach over another. It...