Ideality

Ideality is a measure of how closely a real device, like a diode or transistor, performs compared to an ideal or perfect version of itself. It indicates how clean, efficient, or predictable its operation is. For example, an ideal diode would allow current to flow only in one direction without any voltage drop or losses. In practice, real devices deviate from this ideal due to physical limitations and variations. Understanding ideality helps engineers design better circuits by quantifying these deviations and improving device performance to match theoretical behavior as closely as possible.