Greetings,
I am a researcher currently developing a study on the measurement of difficulty/complexity in electronic circuits. I am looking for books, scientific articles, instructional materials, or datasets that present sets of electronic circuits accompanied by some indication of difficulty, complexity level, or pedagogical classification, even if such indication is subjective or approximate.
Any reference would be welcome, including classic textbooks, lecture notes, datasets, academic repositories, or materials used in technical or university-level education. If you are aware of works that organize circuits by difficulty level, or that could be used as a basis for comparative analysis, I would greatly appreciate your help and recommendations.
Thank you in advance for any help or references you may be able to share.
The Arduino ProjectHub which is at HERE
has a project selector by difficuly level like this
That is an subjective question. Without knowing your background, I cannot give a solid answer. Someone with an electronics engineering background and relevant experience would likely interpret your criteria differently than someone from another profession. For example, a medical doctor and an electronics engineer would naturally define and evaluate these categories based on their own training and experience.
My guess: Your question appears to come from someone trained in research methodology, not just electronics, very likely a PhD student, postdoc, or faculty member in electrical engineering or engineering education preparing a literature review or survey paper.
Measurement of electronics is a complicated process, what specifically are you looking at, IC design, module design, consumer products, etc?
This same post was created in the Portuguese category:
Duplicate posts are against forum rules.
“ https://forum.arduino.cc/t/onde-achar-circuitos-divididos-por-nivel-de-dificuldade
Duplicate posts are against forum rules.
I have deleted your other cross-post @alissonoliveira17.
Cross-posting is against the Arduino Forum rules. The reason is that duplicate posts can waste the time of the people trying to help. Someone might spend a lot of time investigating and writing a detailed answer on one topic, without knowing that someone else already did the same in the other topic.
Repeated cross-posting can result in a suspension from the forum.
In the future, please only create one topic for each distinct subject matter. This is basic forum etiquette, as explained in the "How to get the best out of this forum" guide. It contains a lot of other useful information. Please read it.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
"Difficult" is relative. How do you not know this?
How is your first post not labeled as "First post?" Question has been answered.
For anyone expecting credentials...
On my ResearchGate profile, I have published some works on complexity measurement in other domains, such as industrial property patents and C programming language source code, which may help contextualize my research approach. Thank you in advance for any help or references you may be able to share. LINK: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alisson-Oliveira-17/
"Difficulty is judged by number of lines."
However, the most frequently cited indicators in the literature are Cyclomatic
Complexity (CC) and the number of Lines of Code (LoC)
Extremely vague, otherwise.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387549116_Assessing_Programming_Difficulty_and_Effort_Statistical_Correlations_with_the_Index_of_Internal_Effort
My opinion is that you can break it down by
- the number of components in the circuit.
- the number of connections in the circuit
- the type of processor used
- the number of processors in the circuit, any more than one will double the complexity
As each category increases so does the complexity.
When I look at the tier page of the PCB software I use (Diptrace) they have selected the # of pins and signal layers in the PCB as the price determining factor. I think that relates to complexity pretty well.
I have asked AI on behalf of you, and they have given me the following list:
Level 
: Passive Circuits (Lowest Complexity)
Function: Signal conditioning without gain or control
Components: Resistors, capacitors, inductors
- Voltage divider
- RC / RL timing circuits
- RLC resonance circuits
- Passive filters (LPF, HPF, BPF)
No power gain, no control logic
Level 
: Basic Active Analog Circuits
Function: Signal amplification or buffering
Components: Diodes, BJTs, MOSFETs, op-amps
- Diode rectifiers and clippers
- BJT / MOSFET amplifiers
- Op-amp amplifiers (inverting, non-inverting)
- Comparators
Continuous-time, analog behavior
Level 
: Linear Analog Functional Blocks
Function: Signal processing and conditioning
- Active filters
- Oscillators (RC, LC, crystal)
- Voltage regulators (linear, LDO)
- Phase shifters
- Signal generators
More parameters, stability matters
Level 
: Power Electronic Circuits
Function: Power conversion and control
- Linear power supplies
- SMPS (buck, boost, buck-boost)
- Inverters and rectifiers
- Motor driver circuits
Thermal, EMI, and efficiency considerations
Level 
: Digital Logic Circuits
Function: Boolean processing
- Logic gates
- Flip-flops
- Counters and registers
- Multiplexers / decoders
- Clocked synchronous circuits
Discrete logic and timing constraints
Level 
: Mixed-Signal Circuits
Function: Analog–digital interaction
- ADCs and DACs
- PLLs
- Sensor interface circuits
- Data acquisition systems
Noise, sampling, and resolution critical
Level 
: Embedded System Circuits
Function: Programmable control
- Microcontroller-based circuits
- Peripheral interfaces (UART, I²C, SPI)
- Human–machine interfaces (keypads, displays)
- Real-time control circuits
Hardware–software co-design
Level 
: System-Level Electronic Designs
Function: Complete electronic systems
- Communication systems
- Control systems
- Measurement instruments
- Robotics controllers
- IoT devices
Multiple subsystems interacting
Level 
: Highly Integrated & Advanced Systems (Highest Complexity)
Function: Large-scale computation or communication
- SoC-based systems
- FPGA-based designs
- Multi-core processors
- AI accelerators
- RF transceivers
Cross-domain expertise required