Yale College Programs of Study Course Description

TEXT: Senturia & Wedlock: "Electronic Circuits and Applications." Please feel free to check used and new online sources, such as bookfinder.com. You can use either the original 1975 Wiley edition (where I see some very cheap used copies), or the 1993 Krieger republication (of which the Yale Book Store has ordered some copies, new for about $85. They said they would also look for some used ones). One or more copies are also on reserve in the Becton Library and the Cross-Campus Library. There will also be handouts to supplement the text.
"A 30-year-old text for such a modern subject?" you will ask. I assure you that, amidst the quest for modernity and for publishing $130 textbooks, the foundations of EE have not changed. The priority of topics has changed somewhat, and our journey in Senturia & Wedlock will reflect that. A course like this is really about learning how to learn circuits. Most basic circuit configurations used in modern electronics predate even semiconductors.
And by using an older book you have these multiple purchasing options. Newer books with frequent new editions lock you into a given edition to 'stay in sync' with the material's organization and the numbering and details of end-of-chapter problems, thus crippling the used book option.

INSTRUCTOR: Peter J. Kindlmann, 503 Becton, tel.2-4294, (email is preferred form of communication). There will be weekly office hours (tba), and there is also a Web scheduler for arranging meetings, particularly during "peak" periods like the first two weeks of the semester. At other times there may not be any slots posted, and we'll see each other during office hours, or schedule by email.

TEACHING ASSISTANT: Dechao Guo, 317 Becton, tel. 2-4209

PLEASE NOTE these important aspects of course philosophy:

• Learning the beginnings of a subject as intrinsically abstract as EE is always difficult, especially if you also want to develop the intuitive understanding that cushions you against later complexity. It is inevitable, so cognitive psychology tells us, that those who teach those beginnings have forgotten the "what it was like not to know" part of their own experience. Their later expertise in their fields will have evolved taxonomies, understandings and insights that are part of their later professional life, rather than their state of mind during their introductory exposure. My own beginnings in EE were atypical, starting at the age of 11 with war surplus electrical and electronic components in post-war Austria. By the time I came to EE formalisms in my college years, I had developed enough of an intuitive "comfort cushion" to survive any teaching. I wish each of you could have such a cushion, but I realize that you will have different and varied backgrounds. I cannot escape the paradox of being too old to know "what it was like not to know", but want to tell you that I am sensitive to it and thus want to make this course as interactive and responsive as possible. Your suggestions and comments are always welcome, via the <classes> feedback, or by email.
• Our excellent text, supplemented by other material via Web or handouts, lessens the need to go over such material very literally in class. You can read and are expected to do so! Class meetings will be more interactive, dealing more with interpretation of the material, with your learning and understanding.

PREREQUISITES: One year of high school calculus and physics.

MY OBJECTIVES FOR THIS COURSE:
Having taken this course with a modicum of success, you will be able to

• understand basic ac and dc electric circuits, both passive and active, as building blocks of analog systems;
• understand the basic concepts of digital building blocks, as derived from analog circuit behavior;
• analyze and design moderately sophisticated analog circuits;
• analyze and design modest digital circuits (the real beginnings of that come in EENG348a);
• perform circuit simulations on the above as an aid to understanding, not as the all-too-frequent substitute for it;
• take EE227La next semester with minimum difficulty;
• take more advanced circuits-related courses (e.g EENG325b) with minimum difficulty.

TOPICS: (still subject to some revision)

Week	Date	Chapters/Sections in Senturia & Wedlock	TOPICS	Other Interesting (Optional) Resources
1	1/11	1	Introduction, Systems, Modeling	MIT EECS 6.002 course, Lecture 1
	1/13	2, 3	Kirchhoff laws, voltage and current sources,	MIT EECS 6.002 course, Lecture 2
2	1/18	2, 3	Thevenin, Norton, superposition	MIT EECS 6.002 course, Lecture 3
	1/20	2, 3	more superposition; examples
3	1/25	5.1-5.3	Op-amps — inverter, non-inverter
	1/27	5.1-5.3	more linear configurations, comparators, Schmitt-Trigger
4	2/1	5.4	Specifications of real op amps
	2/3	8.1-8.2	Diodes, load-line
5	2/8	8.3-8.4	Piecewise-linear model, rectifiers and clamps, small signal models
	2/10	9.1, 10.1	BJT, load-line
6	2/15		Test #1 (on material through 2/8)
	2/17	10.1	Common-emitter circuit
7	2/22	10.2	Emitter-follower, regulators
	2/24	10.3	Two-transistors, differential amplifier
8	3/1	9.2, 10.4 (+ handouts)	MOSFETs, MOSFET circuits, analog switches
	3/3	4, 11.1 - 11.2.4	Dependent sources, BJT small signal model (hybrid-pi model)
	3/8 - 3/10	Spring Break
	3/15 - 3/17	Spring Break
9	3/22	4, 11.1-11.2.4	Dependent sources, BJT small signal model (hybrid-pi model)
	3/24	6.1-6.3	Simple RC, RL
10	3/29		Test #2 (on material through 3/22)
	3/31	6.4, 13.3	Opamps and capacitors, integrators, differentiators, active circuits
11	4/5	Handouts	Initial and final value problems with opamps and capacitors and inductors
	4/7	12.1 - 12.3	Complex plane, response to exp(st), impedances
12	4/12	13.1, 13.2	Frequency response, Bode plots
	4/14	16.1	Boolean algebra
13	4/19	16.2	Implementation of logic functions with transistor circuits, "Analog meets Digital": D/A and A/D conversion
	4/21	16.3, 16.4	Flip-flops, shift registers
14	4/26 - 5/2	Reading Period	Review
15	5/9		FINAL EXAM

ASSIGNMENTS & LABORATORY WORK:

• Written assignments will typically be weekly, and are due at the beginning of class on the due date.
• EENG226-related work in the Morse Teaching Center will generally be restricted to the use of the PCs there for simulation. Your TA, and Ed Jackson (the senior resident engineer in the MTC) are resource people for questions about simulation. We may also have occasional demos in the MTC.

WHAT ABOUT WORKING TOGETHER?
If you can do the problem, you should work it alone, you'll learn the most that way.
If you are seriously stuck, and banging your head against the wall, there is no learning going on. You are allowed to work with other students, but you must give credit where credit is due. Each of you must turn in your own homework writeup, and on that homework, you must list anyone who helped you on the homework, and explain how they helped. An example acknowledgment might look like this:

Acknowledgments: I was able to do the simulation for this problem, but the analysis eluded me. Joe Johnson showed me how to set up the equations, which I was then able to solve myself and to confirm my simulation.

Working together is good skill to learn and practice. In both industry and academia, people usually work together, and anyone who contributes to a project should receive appropriate credit.
Please be very clear that I consider unacknowledged collaboration to be dishonest! For University rules on intellectual dishonesty, see the Yale College Undergraduate Rules and Regulations on this point.

GRADING: Homework (40%), Average of 2 Tests during the semester (30%), Final (30%).
Depending on what the enrollment and the learning opportunities turn out to be, I may modify this to be less formal.