This document has been floating around the ECE department for some time. I most recently stole it from Prof. Hopwood, but I have seen people give credit to Prof. McKnight for writing it.
--Chuck DiMarzio, August 2007
I) Cover Page
Each report shall have a cover page (plain paper acceptable) which will contain the following
information.
1) Name of the SPICE circuit or problem under consideration.
2) Name of student.
3) Date.
Reports should be typed, but handwritten equations, plots, and circuit diagrams are acceptable.
II) Abstract
An abstract (less than one page - a few sentences). The abstract states the problem and contains a
summary of the results. For example, the following is a typical part of an abstract: "SPICE
simulation has shown that the value of Rc is critical. A five percent deviation above its design
value of 50K will cause Q2 to saturate. By incorporating a current mirror Rc can be eliminated."
III) Introduction or Approach or Preliminary Analysis (You can use any
appropriate title here)
This section introduces the reader to the problem you are trying to solve and guides the reader
through your approach to solve the problem. It may contain hand calculations that you have
performed. At a minimum, this section contains a drawing of the circuit and any preliminary
calculations needed to set up the analysis. For instance, if the circuit is an amplifier, you might
use hand calculations to establish a suitable bias condition. You would then perform a small
signal analysis to determine the expected gain analytically, and choose initial component values
based on these calculations.
IV) Analysis
This section contains your Spice results as well as analysis following from the SPICE work.
Results are brought together in graphs or tables whenever possible. (Use EXCEL or other
graphing program if the results can't easily be plotted in SPICE.) For example, a comparison of
the SPICE results with the approximate analytical methods is often appropriate here. Also
include calculations supporting conclusions to be drawn from the work. The Analysis section
contains paragraphs describing your approach with references to all SPICE output. Typical
sentences in this section might be: "Figure 5 shows that the collector current of Q2 increases as
the value of R2 decreases. Figure 6 shows that by choosing a transistor with a higher Early
voltage the output current variation can be reduced. I have chosen a 2Nxxxx because it has both
high Early Voltage and a large value of beta."
Important note: This is not a dump of 20 pages of SPICE output files! SPICE output that is
presented without reference from the text will be assumed to be incomprehensible to the student
and therefore reason for a reduced grade. A good starting point is to try to use the minimum
amount of Spice output and other supporting material to adequately document your work.
All figures and tables (graphs, circuit diagrams, PSpice output, tabulated results) should be
referred to in the text of the report. For example, "Figure 3 shows the distorted sine wave
resulting from the limited supply voltage." Graphs may be inserted after the page on which they
are referred to (better: inserted in a Figure box on the page) or collected together at the end,
They must have a Figure number and a caption (hand-wriffen is OK).
VI) Summary
The summary is one or two concluding paragraphs to the project. This section describes the
work you did and conclusions that you draw from the work. It also includes, in a more
descriptive way than the abstract, the results obtained. A typical sentence sequence in the
summary might be: "My analysis of the circuit showed that the value of RC must be chosen
within 5% of 50K in order for the circuit to work at all. However, by replacing Rc with a current
mirror and choosing a transistor with an Early voltage greater than 100 volts, this problem is
eliminated."
VII) Appendices
Include your PSpice .cir files in an appendix. The entire output file is not necessary.