EECE2412 --- Electronics --- Spring 2013

Prof. DiMarzio | Course Syllabus (.pdf) | Tentative Course Calendar
Lab Syllabus (.pdf) | Lab | Lab Dates (Labs are for both sections)

Office Hours:
Prof. DiMarzio: 222 Egan, Mon. 3-4pm and Wed 10:40-11:40am
TA Joseph Hollmann, ECE Class of 2003, 352 Egan, 9-11am Fridays, hollmann.j@husky.neu.edu
Tutor: James Rooney, ECE Class of 2013, Tuesday 1:00 to 4:00 PM & Wednesday 10:15 AM to 1:15 PM in 232FR
Lab TAs: Stephanie Quinn, 418DA Mondays 10:30am to 12:30pm, or by appointment. quinn.st@husky.neu.edu
Saba Zare, 235DA Thursdays 5:45pm to 7:45pm. zare.s@husky.neu.edu
Chun-hsiang Chang, 240DA, Mondays and Thursdays 3:20 to 4:20pm. chang.chu@husky.neu.edu

Recitation Sessions with Tutor (both sections):
Tuesdays 11:30am - 1:30pm 325SH, 15 January through 16 April
and Thursdays 3-4pm 325SH, 17 January through 18 April
Tutoring is also available from Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical engineering honor society. (both sections)

Information here applies to my section only unless otherwise noted. Prof. Onabajo's course information is posted on his Blackboard site. His students are, of course, welcome to use an material here that they find useful. The tutoring information and lab information applies to both sections.

.pdf files: | Homework 1 | Homework 2 | Homework 3 |
| Solutions 1 | Solutions 2 | Solutions 3 |
| Homework 4-5 | Homework 6 |
| Solutions 4-5 | Solutions 6 |
| Pspice 1 | Pspice 2 | Pspice 3 |
| Exam 1 Solutions | Exam 1 Histogram | Mid-Term Histogram | Late-Term Histogram | Exam 2 Solutions |
| final grades by category | overall score and cut points|



Announcements (Updated 4 May 2013)

(4 May 2013) The solutions to Exam 2 are posted. I have your exams and last lab assignments in my office in 334 Egan. Please check with me by email to make sure I'm around before you try to pick them up.

(27 April 2013) Grades are now posted on the registrar's site. I used the following rules: Drop the lowest homework, Drop the lowest Spice project (slightly more generous than I had stated in the syllabus), Homework is 20%, Spice is 25%, Highest exam is 32% and lowest is 23%. For your interest, I've posted a couple of spreadsheets. The first shows grades by category including homework and spice (with the lowest dropped), and the two exams, as well as the overall score. The second shows the overall score and cut points.

Thanks to all of you for your participation in the class. I look forward to seeing you again in later courses, and I wish you the best in your careers. Have a good summer vacation, summer semester, coop, or whatever is next on your schedule.

(22 April 2013) Solutions to Homework 6 are posted.

(21 April 2013) This is a reminder that the final exam is Tuesday from 10:30 to 12:30 in 312 Ell. There is no change to the schedule as posted on the University's course calendar.

(19 April 2013) Both Joseph and I will be off campus and mostly out of email contact today. I expect to be available for email for most of the weekend. I believe there are only one or two students with extenuating circumstances who have work to be submitted today. Because the submission is electronic, the (already extended) deadline is still today.

(18 April 2013) I've had a number of requests (Actually the "number" is "one" but I understand several of you have discussed this idea) for a practice exam. Obviously, every exam is different, and it's hard to pick something that is representative. However, here's an exam gave a while back on the same material. Problem 3 was actually written by a former NU student, who was doing his MS (now doing his Ph.D.) at MIT. Here is the same exam with solutions. I've also updated the grade histogram through HW6 and SPICE2. Note that I have not removed the lowest grade, nor made any other adjustments. The letter grades are according to the NU standards. I may or may not make some adjustments to these lines at the end of the term.

(17 April 2013) James Rooney has been named to the "Huntington 100 Distinguished Seniors and Juniors." Congratulations on this richly deserved honor, and thanks for your recitations and office hours during this term.

(15 April 2013) Pspice 3 will be accepted through 6:00PM (18:00)EDT (22:00 GMT)on Thursday, 18 April (Someone once used the excuse of misunderstanding AM/PM, so I'm providing the time in several formats). I will collect your reports in class on Wednesday if they are ready. If not, please submit by email to Joseph.

(12 April 2013) Part "a" of the Spice 3 project was confusing. I've split it into two parts and re-posted the project description. I called the parts a an a', to avoid renaming all the parts and the confusion that would produce.

(10 April 2013) NO CLASS Remember that there is no class today. You are encouraged to attend part of the Capstone Design Competition in the McLeod Suite in the Curry Student Center.

SPICE 3 is posted. It is due the last day of class, Wednesday, 17 April.

(1 Apr 2013) Homework 6 is due Thursday, rather than Wednesday as was previously announced.

28 Mar 2013) The Biomedical Engineering Society Student Chapter is hosting Dr. Frank Moss at the weekly club meeting next Monday, April 1st at 6PM. Dr. Moss will be giving a presentation and be available for questions. Amongst other things Dr. Moss was the director of MIT Media Labs for 6 years and is the co-founder of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, an extremely successful biotechnology company in Cambridge, MA.

(26 Mar 2013) Please note the following policy on homework. Although we allow (and even encourage) collaboration on the homework, we still expect to see a solution in which we can follow the student's approach to the problem. If you simply write the answer with no work to show how you obtained it, we will score the entire problem with a zero.

(26 Mar 2013) From the ECE Department: Undergraduate students and ECE faculty are invited to attend our first annual ECE Town Hall meeting. This event is scheduled for Friday, March 29th at 11:45-1:00 in the Curry Student Center (4th floor Rms. 442-448). Food and beverages will be served. Dean Aubry will also be in attendance.

(26 Mar 2013) Joseph is moving his office hours to this evening fromn 5 to 7 pm in 352 Egan, to be available for help with the PSPICE project. Remember to use the circuit that we posted in the homework 4-5 solutions.

(19 March 2013) Pspice 2 is posted above. The solutions to HW4-5 will be posted shortly. You will find them useful in starting the project.

(14 Mar 2013) My apologies for being out today. I am beginning to feel better, and I'm confident that I'll be back in class on Monday. Thanks to Joseph for covering for me on short notice. I've officially set the homework date to Monday. There are a couple of changes: Values of R4 and R5 are given and a short was removed at the base of Q3. The assignment file has been replace with Homework 4-5rev0pt2.pdf .

(28 Feb 2013) Homework 4-5 is posted. This assignment will be worth double credit, as announced in class. It is a big assignment, so don't wait until the last night to start. Also, the solutions to Homework 3 are posted. There is also an overall grade histogram. Enjoy the spring break.

(27 Feb 2013) I've graded the exam, posted the grades on Blackboard, and posted the solutions and the histogram of grades.

(20 Feb 2013) As announced in class, for tomorrow's exam, you may bring a calculator and one sheet of paper with whatever equations and notes you want. The paper should be no larger than 8.5 by 11 inches. You may have notes on both sides. Good luck.

Interested in Biomedical Engineering? Check this announcement of the Biomedical Engineering Career Series.

(18 Feb 2013) For those of you who may have missed it, Homework 3 is due Wednesday in class, not Monday as it says on the assignment.

(12 Feb 2013) Homework 2 Solutions and Homework 3 are both posted.

(9 Feb 2013) In the Pspice project, in part 2, 2.2 DC Sweep, you were asked to plot voltage versus time. Do the sweep and transient analysis separately. When you conduct the transient analysis, assume your DC voltage source = 0V. By the way, although I'm on travel, we will still have class Monday. Joseph will present the lecture.

(2 Feb 2013) Happy Groundhog Day. The video streaming lectures are now available. Sign in on the blackboard site. On the left side, look for "Tegrity Classes," and click it. You will find a list of dates. Start with the earliest one and watch all three during the week. You may have to work around pop-up blockers. Ignore the testing lectures.

(1 Feb 2013) The syllabus and course calendar have the SPICE project due Thursday, 7 Feb. I think it makes sense to extend the deadline to Monday, 11 Feb, in class.

(31 Jan 2013) The first project, Pspice 1 , is posted.

(29 Jan 2013) Please note new Lab TA hours for Chun-hsiang. These hours should be better for students having lab on Fridays as well as Tuesdays.

(29 Jan 2013) For your interest as we start working on rectifier circuits, here is a simple power supply circuit to show how they can be used http://electronics-diy.com/electronic_schematic.php?id=608

(25 Jan 2013) James will now be holding his office hours in 232FR. There is no longer a need to email him about office hours. Just go there and knock on the door.

(24 Jan 2013) Thanks to our TA, Joseph, for putting together the Solutions to Homework Set 1.

(23 Jan 2013) Homework 2 is posted. It is due next Thursday, 31 Jan.

(21 Jan 2013) The syllabus and calendar have been updated to correct dates for the SPICE assignments.

(14 Jan 2013) Tutoring is now available from Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical engineering honor society. This message applies to both sections. You are encouraged to take advantage of this resource.

(10 Jan 2013) Two items: First, I made an error in the lecture yesterday in the example on current gain. The current gain in that example is ((V_{out}/R_L))/((V_{in}/R_1)). We can rewrite that as A_V R_1/R_L = (-5) (1000 Ohms)/(500 Ohms) = -10, which is 20 dB. The power gain is then A_V A_I = (-5)(-10) = 50, or 17 dB.

Second, Homework 1 is posted. It is due next Thursday. You can solve the first two problems with the lecture material that has already been presented. The remaining material will be covered in the next couple of lectures.

(7 Dec 2012) Welcome to EECE2412, Electronics. We will introduce you to the basic components of modern electronics, namely diodes and transistors, along with their use in a variety of circuits. There will be lectures, homework assignments, computer-based design assignments, and of course, exams. The laboratory, EECE2413, will be closely coordinated with the class material. The textbook, is Hambley, Electronics , Second Edition.
We will make use of Pspice and Matlab software in this course.
I'm just beginning to build the website. Eventually all the important course material including schedules, homework assignments, and announcements will be here. The supporting material below is from the last time I taught the course, and may change this year.






Supporting Material
matlab_tutorial.pdf MATLAB Tutorial Students unfamiliar (or slightly familiar) with Matlab may find this useful.
html/opamp.html Matlab code for the Op. Amp.lectures. You can create html code like this from Matlab using mym;publish('mywebpage','html'), where you have written a script called myfile.m. and want to produce html code into mywebpage.html. Try "help publish" to learn more.
ac_amp.m Matlab code for the AC Op. Amp. This is for the example problem in class on Wed. 16 Jan 2013.
spice/opamp1.sch OpAmp SPICE Schematic. I use this DC op-amp circuit to demonstrate SPICE in class. We can do DC sweeps to generate the transfer characteristic, and we can find the "bias point" or "Q Point," although the latter doesn't mean much in this case.
spice/opamp2.sch OpAmp SPICE Schematic. I added some capacitors to illustrate the AC sweep and transient behavior.
semiconductor.pdf Semiconductor Pictures. Here are some slides I will use in class in discussion of semiconductors.
acdc.pdf DC and AC Models. This table tells you how to create DC and AC models for the components of a circuit.
BJT Amplifiers BJT Amplifier Cheat Sheet. You may find this summary of BJT amplifiers useful.
html/fet1.html FET Bias. There is some Matlab code for the FET bias problem here.
html/fet2.html FET Current Source. There is some Matlab code for the FET current source problem here.
html/fet3.html FET Amplifier and Logic There is some Matlab code for the FET amplifier and logic circuits here.
Other Resources
The textbook has a website with a variety of resources that you may find interesting. It is located at http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pubbooks/hambley/chapter0/deluxe.html.

Pspice information (Thanks to Prof. McGruer) PSpice (Available on NU computers or download for free). We will extensively use PSpice. The student version of PSpice is available for free. You may use any version of PSpice that you wish, but you may find it helpful to be consistent in your versions. You cannot save in version 9.1 and use in version 8.0. In fact, sometimes there is difficulty in saving in version 8.0 and then using in version 9.1, but less so. Pspice is avaliable at http://www.electronics-lab.com/downloads/schematic/013/ . It is reported to be available at http://www.web-ee.com/Downloads/Simulator/simulation.htm , but that did not work for me.

If you want to review circuits or more problems to solve in electronics, you might find Schaum's Outlines for Electric Circuits or Electronic Devices and Circuits useful. I have not looked at these in a while but I found their earlier outlines quite useful when I was a student.

Guidelines for writing a SPICE report are here . Some of my own pet peeves about students' reports are here

Tutoring is available by Eta Kappa Nu, Electrical Engineering Honor Society, http://www.hkn.neu.edu. Details will be announced in class and on the HKN website early in the semester.

For help with Matlab, you may find this tutorial useful. http://people.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/Software/matlabTutorial/html/index.html. Thanks to Tom Gaudette (NU ECE BS 1996, MS 1998), at Mathworks for passing this along.

You may want to look at the presentation files I used in a previous class, although I do not plan to use them this year. See the website for that class for more information. http://www.ece.neu.edu/courses/eceu402/2007fa-dimarzio/


ABOUT THE BACKGROUND: My favorite winter passtime is skiing. I put this background together from a detail of a photograph taken at Park City, in 2003. There are four copies in different orientations so that the tracks (and more importantly, the brightness levels) line up as the pattern repeats.