(1 May 2016) Course grades are posted on Blackboard and have been submitted to the registrar. Lab grades have been submitted to the registrar for sections 1 and 3, and will be by 9AM for section 5. Histograms of the three exams and the course grade are available here. Exam solutions will be posted soon. You may pick up your exam in my office, but it might be best to contact me first to make sure I'll be there.

(27 Apr 2016) I do not have office hours scheduled this week, but I will be available Thursday from 4:00 to 5:00 in my office if you have any questions. Remember that you are allowed 3 pages of notes for the final, rather than 2 that I said originally. Of course, you are also allowed a calculator.

(25 Apr 2016) There is a practice exam posted. It may not be as useful as you'd hope because I did the exams differently last time I taught the course, but it does give you some problems to try. Keep in mind that I only gave two exams that term, with equal weights. It's posted without and with solutions, so you can try it first. Also, solutions to homework 8 are posted.

(22 Apr 2016) Important update: You may use 3 sheets of notes (8.5 by 11 inches, both sides) for the final exam. There will be a review session Wednesday from 10:30 to 12:30 in 90SL. Enter through the library and go downstairs.

(17 Apr 2016) There will be no homework 9. Homework 8 was the last set. For your information, the final is Friday 29 April, from 10:30 to 12:30 in 409 Robinson. Wednesday's class will be a review in preparation for the final.

(11 Apr 2016) Solutions to Exam 2 have been posted. Histograms for both exams are posted. If your grade on the horizontal axis has a number n on the vertical axis, then n-1 students had grades lower than yours and 36-n had higher grades. I have also plotted the two exam scores against each other, so you can see how well the scores are correlated, and see how your own score changed from the first to the second. Your grade should appear on the grade view in Blackboard.

(10 Apr 2016) There are multiple symbols in use for FETs. The one I use in class is the one used by the SPICE simulation program. This FET is a 4-terminal device, but normally the source is connected to the "body" or "substrate." Sometimes that's done internally so there are only 3 terminals. The arrow is on the "body." For an NFET, the body is p-type and the arrow points from the p body to the n channel. In a PFET it points from the p channel to the n body. It always points from p to n.

However, the symbols used in HW8 are also in common use. Notice that the "body" or "substrate" connection is not shown, so this is a 3-terminal device. The arrow is on the source connection, and points in the direction of normal current flow, like the arrow on a BJT, which is on the emitter.

In my notation, the 3 bars become solid for a depletion mode FET. In the alternate notation, the bar is already solid, so a heavy bar denotes a depletion FET.

(7 Apr 2016) Homework 8 is posted. It is due Thursday, 14 April.

(4 Apr 2016) I will begin my office hours on Wednesday at 1:20 instead of 1:00, because I have a meeting with the student section of IEEE.

(29 Mar 2016) As I mentioned in class yesterday, the exam will only cover the BJT material.

(29 Mar 2016) Homework 5 and 6 solutions are posted on Blackboard.

(29 Mar 2016) Prof. Grabel is hosting a review session tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 in 150 Dodge. All students from both sections are invited. Reminders: (1) HW7 is officially due Wednesday, but I will accept it as late as Thursday. (2) Wedneday's class will be a review of BJTs. (3) The exam will be on Thursday and will cover all the BJT topics, but will not address anything about the FET. The rules are the same as they were for Exam 1. You may make use of two sheets of notes, 8.5-by-11 inches, using both sides of the page. You may use a calculator.

(24 Mar 2016) Homework 7 is now posted. I promised to do it "tonight" and it's 23:58.

(17 Mar 2016) Homework 6 Extension: Homework 6 is now due Monday. This was decided on short notice, so please spread the word to your fellow students in both sections.

(6 Mar 2016) There are apparently a couple of errors in Problem A on HW5. V_BB is missing. Use -8 Volts. Also for the last question in the problem, if it is not possible to solve this part, explain why not. I have modified the file, HW5a.

On HW6, in Problem 2, assume that the emitter DC voltage is 4 Volts. Also, the current source is 1mA. I have modified the file, HW6a.

(4 Mar 2016) Reminder: Tutoring is available from Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical engineering honor society, for this and other courses. Let your friends know about this resource.

(3 Mar 2016) Homework 6 is posted. Homework 5 is due Thursday the 17th, as is Homework 6.

(3 Mar 2016) Someone left a scarf in the classroom yesterday. I'll bring it to class today.

(2 Mar 2016) Exam 1 grades are posted on Blackboard. Your score written on the front of your exam is based on a perfect score of 90. The grade in Blackboard should be 10 points higher. For your interest, I have constructed a histogram of the grades. There are 36 students in the class. If your rank is 10, there are 9 students with grades lower than yours and 26 students with grades higher.

(2 Mar 2016) Exam 1 Solutions are now posted. A perfect score was 90. I have added 10 points when I entered the numbers into Blackboard. Exams will be returned in class and scores will be available this evening.

(29 Feb 2016) Homework 5 due date is moved to 17 March, the Thursday after spring break. There will be additional problems assigned this coming Thursday (HW6).

(25 Feb 2016) Homework 5 is posted.

I will have late office hours tomorrow, Friday. I have a faculty candididate to interview at 11:00 to 11:30 in Dana. I'll get back to "the Lake House" as soon as possible after 11:30 and hold office hours until about 12:30 or so.

(17 Feb 2016) Solutions to HW3 are posted on the Blackboard site, and not here. This is partly because of copyright issues as we are using solutions from the manual. Practice Exam Solutions are here.

(11 Feb 2016) Here is a copy of the mid-term exam I gave last time I taught the course. I only gave two exams instead of 3, and I spent more time on photodiodes that year, so consider only the first two problems.

(10 Feb 2016) I seem to have caught a cold and you really don't want to be in the same room with me this afternoon. Prof. Grabel has agreed to cover the class. I will see you tomorrow.

(9 Feb 2016) In view of the snow day yesterday, homework 4 is due Tuesday in the lab in 009HA during the morning lab session between 9:15 and 11:15. Please leave it with the TA there. Make sure to put it in the correct envelope for my section, and not Prof. Grabel's.

(5 Feb 2016) I have a meeting at 11:00 that will conflict with my office hours. I can meet students by appointment between 2:00 and 3:00. Homework 4 is posted above.

(4 Feb 2016) The report format for Lab 1 is here.

(1 Feb 2016) In HW3 Problem 2, V_0 is at the extreme right of the circuit, i.e. across the 50 Ohm resistor.

(29 Jan 2016) Homework 3 and the solutions to HW1 and HW2 are now posted.

(23 Jan 2016) Hint on HW1, 2C: Try using a Norton equivalent for the amplifier output.

(22 Feb 2016) For your planning, our final exam is on Friday, 29 April 201)6, from 10:30am to 12:30pm. Room location has not been announced yet.

(21 Jan 2016) Homework Set 2 is now posted, and is due Thu, 28 Jan at the beginning of class.
Some useful information about op amps is in the supplementary material below.
For anyone interested, there will be a Dialogues of Civilization Mini-Fair for COE students at 6:00pm Monday, 25 January in 168SN.

(20 Jan 2016) I accidentally posted the due date for HW1 as 28 Jan. Many students believed that to be correct and didn't start early on it. Therefore, I will accept HW1 up to Wednesday, 27 Jan. but HW2 will be due as scheduled on the 28th.

(19 Jan 2016) There is not an error in Problem 1. It asks for "the magnitude" of A_v to be 80.

(15 Jan 2016) I believe there is an error in problem 1. I'm waiting to discuss this with Prof. Grabel, but it seems like there is something inconsistent in the signs of the variables. More later.

(14 Jan 2016) The "real" Homework 1 is posted. Solutions to the review problems formerly known as HW1 are posted above.

(13 Jan 2016) In problem 6, the switch connects the left side of the 3-Ohm resistor to either A or B as indicated by the switch position.

(13 Jan 2016) On problem 1 of the homework, the best way to compute resistance is to apply a source (voltage or current) to the terminals and compute the current or voltage at those terminals.

(11 Jan 2016) There are no lab sessions this week or next. You do not need to show up at the lab. If you do, you will probably be very lonely. The lab schedule is included in the syllabus. This message applies to all sections under both instructors. Also note that the names of instructors associated are meaningless (We have to put someone's name and there is only room for one). Students from both course sections are scattered across all lab sections, and the lab assignments are the same for everyone.

(11 Jan 2016) Homework assignment HW1 is posted, and is due at the beginning of class Thursday, 14 January.

(22 Dec 2015) 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.

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

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.

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.