[jp1390]

Ah EJ, where to begin... The course is taught by Dr. Jamal Deen, and if you have heard about him or experienced him you know that he has high expectations of the class. Apparently we did not have a good enough base formed by 2CJ4/2EI5 and this made this course that much more difficult. I really wish that I had put more time into this course as the material was very interesting and virtually everything had a solid set of applications that were tied with them.

The problems with this course were associated with its structure. At first glance it seemed very organized, but this was not the case. I found lecture material to be all over the board and a lot of concepts were fairly abstract and hard to understand. The pre-labs were unbearably long and frankly not worth the 1-2% imo, though I still probably should have done them. I will say that the labs were pretty cool and well put together. Pre-fabbed PCBs ready to use rather than breadboards made debugging WAY easier and the circuits actually worked. The scent of burnt chips was significantly less this year, which was also a plus. The TAs seemed to know their stuff but at times it was hard to get concrete answers to questions.

Dr. Deen knows his stuff and will give a confident answer to any question that arises in class but it is not often the answer that you are looking for, unfortunately. The solutions to most problem sets and tests were wrong, so watch out for that. We only noticed until the night before the final, which is WAY too late, and makes learning the material extremely harder. It seemed as though he enjoyed the fact that the majority of people did not know what they were doing and were just hoping to hitch a ride on the bell curve.

The midterm covered the first three topics listed below and it was pretty straight-forward, but a lot of people were put off by it or were not well-prepared. The lab exams were a completely joke, as in a complete pain in the a**. The questions were on specific details that he had glazed over in lecture or had us briefly look at in the labs. The grades going into this exam were pretty low and I think the general consensus was that no one wanted to have to go through that again and just pass. The only way to pass the course pretty much was to pass the final exam, so it was pretty tense. The exam was very long and had a couple completely random questions on it that were never covered in lecture.

Textbook: Microelectronic Circuits 6th Edition by Sedra & Smith

Additional Reference: Microelectronic Circuit Design 3rd Edition - Jaeger & Blalock

Course Outline:

- Frequency Response
- Negative Feedback
- Active Filters
- Oscillators/Phase-Locked-Loops/VCOs
- Mixed-signal Circuits
- Single-stage amplifiers
- Differential/Multistage Amplifiers
- Analog Multipliers/Modulators/Mixers

Mark Breakdown:

- Four Labs - (pre-lab and completion of lab) 2.5% each
- Two Lab Exams (one double-sided crib sheet) - 10% each
- Midterm (one double-sided crib sheet) - 10%
- Exam (two double-sided crib sheets) - 60%

Advice for anyone taking this course:

- Don't skip! This is one course that you do not want to miss a lecture for
- Ask questions in class or else he will just move on and you will be very confused later on
- Make use of the time in the lab to familiarize yourself with the circuits
- Solve the step-by-step examples provided in the textbook and compare them
- Get upper years to send scans of past midterms/exams to know what you're in for

I may have been too sincere with this review as to what it has done to a lot of people. The material was very interesting though, it is just a shame that it had to go down like this. I guess with every program, there has to be a villain.

Just gonna add this here...

ELECT 3EJ4 Electronic Devices and Circuits II

Overview:

Hell.

Course Structure:

4 lectures a week, one lab (alternate weeks)

'Tutorial' is really just an extra class. Heed this fact, because it makes the expected studying per week go up, compared to many other courses.

Professor Deen is pretty organized and very knowledgable, but at times you will think this is inexcess, because he has high expectactions as a result. Despite this, he will go through the material very slowly; some times only because a student approached him, so don't be afraid to tell him that that he went over a concept, because he'll return to it the next class (or if you ask about a practice problem).

Course website is hardly updated, and only really has lab manuals and test information. Lecture notes were not posted this year, but they do exist (I have 3/4 of them, I requrested the rest of them but wouldn't release them; the reason he doesn't give them out is to encourage class attendance, among other things).

The textbook is very comprehensive and is an excellent investment. There are some sections that assume way too much previous knowledge, while others perfectly explain the concepts you'll end up being tested on. There are a few key concepts not covered in it, such as multiplier, some aspects of mixed signals, practical appication or discussion (explain the reason for such-and-such, advantages and disadvantages of certain circuit topolgies, etc).

Lectures:

The professor used powerpoint in 2010, and entirely blackboard writing this year, so class attendance is absolutely mandatory. This is one of those courses where you have to either look over the concept in great detail if you missed a lecture, or get notes from classmates.

Previous powerpoints are not very well done (assume too much knowledge and required lecture attendance to fill in solutions or explain what the hell is going on.

Times when the professor is away on research/converences/hookie gets taken over by a TA, who wasn't that great at lecture teaching but its very approachable and knowledgable.

Labs:

Actual lab work is a joke, and its only meant to give you a hands on look of what you've been learning, it isn't tested on extensively, however every prelab question or concept is fair game.

Prelab marks (very difficult) are worth very little compared to just attending the lab and working through the material. Expect spending upwards of 5 hours on each prelab if you're not keeping up to date with studying. Even though they're not worth a lot, if you can manage to do them and understand them fully, you're in good shape. MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THE PRELAB QUESTIONS FULLY, OTHERWISE YOU'LL HURT BECAUSE OF IT

Tutorial:

Hitorically taught by TAs such as in 2EI5 (?whatever the prereq course was 2CI5?) but used for extra classes.

After-hours lab:

No access apart from lab hours. No real need though.

Course Material:

• Textbook - Most valuble textbook to buy in ECE
• Lab manual - on web site. Be familiar with web site, because lab location may differ from timetable. Mandatory to complete pre and 'in' lab
• Lecture notes - Do not exist
• Supplementary Notes - internets, see below

Examination:

Labs (4)
(prelab, and lab mark which is basically attendance, because its hard to not finish)
Lab Exams (2)
Midterm (1)
Final (1)

You're permitted a single page (double sided) for midterm, and lab exams. Two pages (4 sides) for the final.

Weights subject to change year to year. Lab exams are new this year and may not remain.

Past Tests:

There are no past midterms or exams to study from. For this reason I'm actually going to write out what was covered.

First midterm covered:
(1) question that tied in MOSFET, and feedback, using the low frequency model of operation
(2) question that covered transfer function derivation and bode plot (mag and phase)
(3) question on colpitts oscillator (everything about it)
(4) bode plot question dealing with what is phase margin and gain margin, what order filter
(5) word question, describing a neg feedback system and drawing its input/output characteristics
(6) same for positive feedback, non-electronic feedback
(7) simple block diagram for use of filters

Don't remember what either lab exams were on, but they were tricky.

Final exam:
I actually put aside space on my cheat sheet specifically to jott down some of the questions before I left it...

(1) Question on FM receiver and how to design a PLL system that deals with a certain frequency thats accurate within 0.1MHz? I saw this question somewhere else before but I can't recall, it might be in the notes. Many people hated and were confused by this.
(2) Filtering SNR. Pretty sure the formula in class applied to this question, or you might have to derive it for this particular system, I'm not sure. SNR=(6.02N +1.76)dB
(3) Inverted DAC ladder, pretty easy
(4) 3 stage amplifier, didn't write down circuit but it was pretty straightfoward, high frequency response part of the question makes it insane to work with if you're not used to rewriting in ss model. Didn't have time to finish this one I think. Groudning and tying together of some of the terminals made this question easier than it could have been.
(5) Widlar current source design with mosfet I think. Question wasn't clear, but I think you had to specifiy design parameters W/L, etc for a specific output current.
(6) Easy colpitts oscillator, a lengthy KCL/arranging question that will eat up test time
(7) Don't remember, but it was the easiest on the test, because I didn't even write it down

Maybe somebody else who took this course could fill in some of the blanks I missed.

Exam not as brutal as the one the previous year, apparently only a few people passed the course without mark adjusting.

Overall impression:

Good course, interesting material, enjoy one of the harder courses in ECE.

If there is any course you should be ahead of in your semester, its this one. Knowing what the hell the professor is talking about during class is very important, otherwise your notes won't make any sense when you look at them later.

First part of the course deals extensively with reviewing random concepts that the professor doesn't seem to be consisent with, but mostly are focused on frequency response and OP amps. Next up is feedback, mosfets and bjts. Make sure to review these things, and especially MOSFETs and BJTs by the time he gets around to them, so you can follow. Then theres filters, mixed signals, then lots of MOSFET/BJT applications.

Like jp1390 said, ask questions, because I get the impression that many people didn't understand what just happened (after finishing with a concept and he asks if anyone has questions), and prefer to remain quiet. Everyone is just as confused as you, most likely.



You can get the past notes from somebody, or feel free to email me if you need any course notes (dont use @mcmaster.ca unless it redirects to gmail or hotmail).

http://class.ee.iastate.edu/ee230/
and
https://ccnet.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/c...at130164662 9
and
http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee122/...tes_Re v0.pdf

EE113_Course_Notes_Re v0.pdf is the only reason I think I managed to pass this course. Use supplementary notes from other schools to aid you in this course, you'll really need them!