Understanding Integrated-Circuit electronics is a Òbrain-toolÓ that is becoming important in a growing number of scientific studies. However the student frequently feels the first approach to this discipline as a shock. Several textbooks in fact require that the reader invest a great effort before the benefit/cost ratio becomes favorable.
Here we start describing the Operational Amplifier and its most important applications, leaving a simplified description transistors behavior in an Appendix (because in some special circuit the transistor is unavoidable).
The goal of this book is to help the first steps of the students (mainly those whose main interest is not electronics) to acquire familiarity with the essential elements of analog electronics, making possible the understanding of many practical circuits.
Algebra is the only mathematical tool strictly required: an elementary knowledge of derivative and integral is sufficient.