In this paper we present a new canonical piecewise-linear circuit capable of realizing every member of the Chua's circuit family [6]. It contains only six two-terminal elements: five of them are linear resistors, capacitors, and inductors, and only one element is a three-segment piecewise-linear resistor. It is canonical in the sense that (1) it can exhibit all possible phenomena associated with any three-region symmetric piecewise-linear continuous vector fields, including those defined in [1] and in [2], and more; and (2) it contains the minimum number of circuit elements needed for such a circuit. Using this circuit, we proved a theorem that specifies the constraint on the types of eigenvalue patterns associated with a piecewise-linear continuous vector field having three equilibrium points. This theorem has an explicit physical meaning and unifies the corresponding theorem in [1] and [2]. We also present some computer simulation results of this circuit, including some new attractors that have not been observed before. © 1990 IEEE