name:	Electronic Circuits
	course_number:	EENG 325b
	department:	Electrical Engineering
	instructor:	Peter Kindlmann
	course meeting days:	WF
	course meeting times:	2.30-3.45
	lab:	htba
	class location:	BCT 508A (probably)

Course Description

Syllabus:

TEXT: Sedra & Smith: Microelectronic Circuits, 4th. ed., Oxford University Press, 1997 <http://www.sedrasmith.org/>. (Ordered at the Yale Book Store. Feel free to check competitive new and used online sources, but note that you do need the 4th ed. See the intro notes.)

(handouts and other books, on reserve in Becton library, will supplement the texts)

INSTRUCTOR: Peter J. Kindlmann, 503 Becton, ext.2-4294, (email is preferred form of communication). There is also a Web scheduler for arranging meetings, particularly during "peak" activity periods. At other times there may not be any slots posted, and we'll schedule by email.

TEACHING ASSISTANT: Yanxiang Liu, tel. 2-4240, 023 Becton

SUMMARY: This will be a design-oriented course and in that sense will "build on" rather than "use" the Sedra & Smith text. You will encounter simple models for active devices, appropriate circuit configurations, and the design of analog circuits with particular functions and specifications, carried out with design-oriented methods. SPICE circuit simulation will be used, running on the the bench stations in the Morse Teaching Center (MTC) but also available from other networked computers. Whenever possible, circuits will be shown in real applications, for awareness of the principles by which "circuit shapes" are arrived at, and for exposure to the "messiness of the real world." The written assignments, and work in the laboratory, will require some independent initiative and inventive effort.

This course is intended to lead into more complex analog circuits, data conversion, power circuits and a variety of other circuit and instrumentation topics, most likely in the context of EENG 426a and EENG 471a/472b.

PLEASE NOTE this important point on course philosophy: Our excellent text, supplemented by other print material via Web or handout, obviates the need to go over such material explicitly in class. Students can read and are expected to do so. Lectures should be interactive, dealing more with interpretation of aspects of the material. In relation to circuits this means the trade-offs pertinent to particular circuit configurations and applications, drawn from the instructor's experience. This is the only good reason to get a group of people together in person in a classroom. Ideally, all the informational and conceptual fixities to be taught should be available to students outside of class, any hour of the day or night. We will try to approach this ideal by the use of an excellent textbook, handouts and material on the Web.

(PRE)REQUISITES:

• Introductory exposure to electrical engineering basics EENG 226a and EENG 228b, and particularly the associated labs: EENG 227La and EENG 229Lb, or their equivalent;
• Each student is expected to check their email regularly. Access to online data (mostly WWW, but also Compendex and INSPEC) will also be a fact of life. Particularly with regard to Compendex and INSPEC you should attend the prominently posted tutorials on searching given by Andy Shimp, our Engineering Librarian, in the Becton Library. At other times, make attentive visits the the excellent Library resources at http://www.library.yale.edu/eas/.

TOPICS:

• Discussion of engineering and the design process, its values and tools.
• Semiconductor parameters and models (BJT, JFET & MOS), approximations in different design situations.
• Classic circuit configurations: one and two transistor amplifiers, current sources, output stages.
• Individual actual applications of compact circuit configurations whenever possible (e.g. using the differential pair as an electrical appliance power meter)
• Synthesis of op amp configurations.
• Use of SPICE and Electronics Workbench simulations as an aid to understanding, not the all-too-frequent substitute for it.
• Using library CD-ROM and on-line database resources on the Internet.
• Design of a precision voltage to frequency converter using charge balancing techniques.
• Specialized ICs, as time allows: transconductance & programmable op amps, sample & hold circuits, multiplexers, phase locked loops.

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

• understand and apply the basic passive and active building blocks of analog design,
  • diodes (small signal and large signal regimes)
  • BJTs and MOSFETs (mostly small signal regime, but also switching applications)
• explain the differential amplifier, the "conceptual cornerstone" of analog design, also
  • Gilbert translinear circuits as one approach of linearizing the differential amplifier
• explain the basic architecture of the modern integrated circuit operational amplifier
• explain the application of feedback in multistage amplifiers and op amp configurations
• read and understand the specifications of a commercial op amp
• recognize and apply the following design principles in more elementary circuit situations
  • Symmetry
  • Equilibrium
  • Eliminating "excess baggage"
  • Superposition
    
• design, with discrete componants and/or op amps, functional multistage circuits (e.g. charge-pump circuits, electronic attenuator, thermometer, power meter, light intensity meter)

ASSIGNMENTS & LABORATORY WORK:

Written assignments will typically consist of 4 or 5 problem sets (or the equivalent in smaller chunks), stressing design thinking, plus a take-home final, which together count (please note!) for about 65% of the grade. Please note that this is a course where the written assignments count for a lot more than in most courses. A Wednesday evening (usually starting at 7pm) discussion session is held soon after a problem set is due, to cover approaches to solutions. (Late problem sets are not accepted after that meeting, even if you don't come.)

What about working together? If you can do the problem, you should work alone. If you are really stuck, and banging your head against the wall, especially on a design problem, there is no learning going on. Consult a class mate. On the whole, I could not put it better than my colleague Brad Kuszmaul did some years ago in a CS422 Web page:

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 wrote the program for this assignment, but it didn't work at first. Joe Blow showed me how to use the debugger, and we worked together to find and correct the problem. Joe also proofread the written part of this assignment.

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.

Work in the Morse Teaching Center on EE325 laboratory tasks, apart from the use of the PCs there for simulation, will consist of a mixture of assigned tasks (e.g. confirmation of simulation results by breadboarding and measurement) and of opportunities for individual initiative, and will count for about 35% of the grade. As much as possible, lab hours will be "flexi-time" though overlap with instructor and Ed Jackson (the senior resident engineer in the MTC) will need to be restricted to hours TBA.