1/f Noise - the Flickering Candle

Here is a good short tutorial on 1/f noise from the EDN website. Says TI's Bruce Trump, in part, "It's also called flicker noise, like a flickering candle. Seen on an oscilloscope with a slow sweep it has a wandering baseline (figure 1) because the high frequency noise rides on larger low frequency content. Pink noise, another metaphoric name, also suggests the stronger low frequency component. Flicker noise seems ever present in physical systems and life science. Weather/climate patterns, for example, have a 1/f component..."

Posted March 2013

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...