UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
College of Engineering
Department of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Sciences

Objective:

Analyze, design, build and test electronic circuits, and understand their capabilities and limitations.

Course Objectives (Outcomes):

1. Understand fundamental circuit principles
• Lumped circuit model (Kirchhoff's laws)
• Energy storage (capacitors and inductors)
• Time and frequency domain signal represenations
• Analog and digital signals, conversion
2. Design, build, and test electronic circuits
• Circuit hierarchy and modularity
• Laboratory practices (breadboarding, test equipment)
• 6 guided laboratories + project
3. Understand circuit limitations
• Circuit imperfections (e.g. component variations)
• Power / accuracy / speed tradeoff
• Moore's law (technology and economic implications)

Specific Subjects Covered:

1. Electrical variables
   (charge, voltage, current, power, energy, resistance, impedance, frequency)
2. Node-voltage analysis
   (including controlled sources and ideal operational amplifiers, no floating voltage sources)
3. Operational amplifier based gain-stages
   (ideal opamps, concept of negative feedback, no stability analysis)
4. Energy storing devices
   (capacitors and inductors)
5. Time-domain analysis
   (1st and 2nd order RLC response)
6. Steady state frequency domain analysis
   (phasors, Laplace transform, transfer functions, Bode plots)
7. Analog / Digital signals
   (signal representations, ADC, DAC, digital circuits, sampling not covered)
8. Circuit simulation
   (SPICE, op, dc, ac, and transient analysis)
9. Laboratory
   (breadboarding, current/voltage supply, DVM, oscilloscope, function generator,
   hand’s on experience with all topics listed above)

Textbook:

Nilsson & Riedel, “Electronic Circuits”, Prentice Hall, 8th edition.
Check the assignments for required reading for each lecture.

Prerequisites:

1. Linear algebra (up to 3 equations with 3 unknowns)
   review Appendices A1-5 in Nilsson
2. Quadratic equations
3. Transcendental functions
   trigonometric, natural (ln) and base 10 (log) logarithm
4. Differentiation
5. Integration
6. Linear d ifferential equations (up to second order)
7. Ohm’s law (voltage, current, resistance)
8. Complex numbers, used starting in the 5th week of the semester (Appendix B in Nilsson)
   addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
   real & imaginary part, absolute value
   Euler’s relation, polar – Cartesian conversion
   

• Homework:
  • Assignments are posted online. Please check the course web regularly.
  • Some homeworks are submitted online (see HW1 & HW2 for instructions). Others must be turned in on the due date by 6pm in the box in room 240 Cory Hall.
  • Late homework will not be accepted or graded.
  • Unless otherwise specified, assignments submitted online are due by 4pm.
  • You may work with others on the homework, but must submit a genuine solution.
• Laboratory:
  • Switching lab sections requires GSI consent.
  • Work in groups of two (or one, but no more than two).
  • Lab instructions:
    • Before the lab starts, download & study the instructions. You will not be permitted to start the lab if you are not prepared.
    • Submit answers that are graded online by the due date set by the grading machine (which usually is well before the actual lab). Every student must submit the online answers, even if working as a group in the lab. The penalty for not submitting online answers by the due date is 50% of the score. Check the instructions for Lab 1 for more information.
    • Print out the lab instructions and enter schematics and measurement results on the printed copy (answers that are not submitted online are indicated by a green frame).
    • Turn in the completed lab report (i.e. instructions and attachments, if any) to your lab GSI, no later than one week after the lab. Groups submit one joint report (mark both SIDs and names).
  • Complete all labs for a passing course grade (attend makeup lab sessions if you cannot finish all experiments during the alloted time).
  • No homework questions in lab (please attend office hours and discussions).
• Effort: You are expected to spend approximately 12 to 16 hours each week on this course, broken down as follows:
  • 3 hours of lecture
  • 1 hour of discussion
  • 3-4 hours reading (book and notes)
  • 3-5 hours homework
  • 3 hours labs and project (preparation and actual lab time, labs are approximately biweekly)

Grading:

All assignments, exams, etc are graded on a scale from 0 to 100 (percent correct). All scores are recorded on bspace. Please check frequently and notify us immediately of any errors. The final GPA is computed as follows:

     GPA = (0.15*HW + 0.15*LAB + 0.3*MT + 0.4*FI) / 23

where

• HW is the mean homework score
• LAB is the mean score of all lab reports
  • Lab scores are the mean of the scores from online answers and the written lab report
  • The project score counts as two labs
• MT is the mean score of the midterm exams
• FI is score of the final exam

Exams are designed for a mean between 40 and 60 points. The typical mean scores for the homework and labs is 95. This results in a mean class GPA = (0.3*95 + 0.7*50) / 23 = 2.76 and meets the department policy for lower division courses having an average GPA of 2.7.

Note that homework and labs make up almost a third of your grade: Doing well on the assignments can make the difference between a B and an A+. Please come to the office hours if you are unsure about a concept or have difficulty with a homework or prelab question. We are devoted to help you understand the material and do well in the course.