Starting a New Design? Check Out DigiKey’s Reference Design Library for a Base Circuit

Do you ever have an idea for a new design and need a spark to get your design started? Or, maybe your design is almost done but you need one or more important application blocks to complete it? Then check out DigiKey’s Reference Design Library. This site is a treasure trove of reference designs for many different applications (see Table).

Listing of Categories, and Sub-Categories where applicable, of designs in DigiKey’s Reference Design Library.

Here’s an example where using the Reference Design Library could speed the time to market of your project. Say you have your project pretty much completed except that you still need to incorporate a battery charging circuit. Simply go to the Reference Design Library’s Battery Chargers page, select the appropriate filters to narrow down your search, and compare the reference designs that result. Choose the one that will best suit your needs and order it then and there. Once you receive your reference design, you can tweak it to suit your circuit, test it out for proper functionality, and tweak it again if necessary until you get it working the way you want it.

The preceding example holds true for adding any of the application categories listed in the table above. In all cases, using the Reference Design Library to help fill in your project’s gaps can really reduce time to market when the alternative is to design these circuits from scratch.

Another thing to consider is that the reference designs in this library come directly from the supplier, so you can rest assured that they have been qualified and tested to function properly.

So, check out DigiKey’s Reference Design Library to jumpstart your project design.