69773 - Electronic Circuits Design

Learning outcomes

The course is intended to introduce to first level students more sophisticated issues in electronic design. The students will be able to: 1) analyse and design feedback systems in electronics such as oscillators; 2) understand signal integrity issues in PCB and IC design; 3) understand the relationship between packaging and electronic design;

Course contents

⁃ Introduction to the course. Review of linear systems, linearity time invariance.

⁃ Review of the concept of characteristic equation, eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a linear system. Examples.

⁃ The quasi-static characteristic and its limits. Review of non-linear systems and harmonic distortion. RC and CR circuits seen from the physical-energetic point of view and with the characteristic equation.

⁃ More on non-linearities and gains of harmonics.

⁃ Recalls of feedback systems. The feedback in electronic circuits. Examples with the non-inverting amplifier. Introduction to LTSpice.

⁃ Examples with the inverting amplifier.

⁃ Concept of stability of feedback electronic systems.

⁃ Phase margin and amplitude margin. Comments on practical examples of datasheets.

⁃ Slew rate.

⁃ More design examples on datasheet. Basic theory of quasi-sinusoidal oscillators. Barkhausen model and criterion.

⁃ Method of the descriptive function. Example of analysis of a quasi-sinusoidal oscillator. Calculation example of the descriptive function

⁃ More on the difference between the characteristic equation and the Barkhausen condition. Discussion on the "trigger condition".

⁃ Wien bridge oscillator. Phase shift oscillators. Abnormal bipole oscillators.

⁃ Negative resistance bipole oscillators. Example of a cross differential pair oscillator.

⁃ Quartz oscillators (XCO).

⁃ Bistable to operational. The latch as a bistable. Astable to operational. Monostable with 2 NOR. Stable with 2 inverters in cascade.

⁃ Resistances of transmission lines. Line capacity. Effect of the fringing field. Characteristic equations. Scaling effects of technology.

⁃ Delay times of transmission lines. Distributed RC line. Characteristic time constants. Distributed line with RLCG effects.

⁃ Equations of telegraph operators. Characteristic impedance of the line. Distributed LC line.

⁃ Reflection coefficient. Lattice diagrams.

⁃ Delay times of lines consisting of distributed capacitances and resistances. Concepts of approximation of networks with lumped and distributed constants.

⁃ Effects of pin inductances. Decoupling capacitors. Germic design of electronic circuits.

⁃ The manufacturing process of printed circuit boards (PCB). Advanced and multilayer PCBs. Electronic packaging.

⁃ The Sigma-Delta conversion

⁃ Examples of feedback in electronics: LDO and superbuffer.

⁃ Phase Locked Loop (PLL) concept

 

Readings/Bibliography

H.B. BAKOGLU CIRCUITS INTERCONNECTIONS AND PACKAGING FOR VLSI ADDISON-WESLEY 1990 S. HALL G. HALL J. MCCALL HIGH-SPEED DIGITAL SYSTEM DESIGN WILEY 2000

Digital Integrated Circuits, by Jan M. Rabaey, Anantha Chandrakasan, and Borivoje Nikolic, Prentice Hall

D. Johns, K. Martin, Analog Integrated Circuit Design, Wiley, 1997

A. SEDRA, K. SMITH, "Microelectronic Circuits" 4-th edition , Oxford Press, 1998

Assessment methods

The final exam aims to assess the achievement of the teaching objective:
- Knowing how to design electronic circuits in feedback regime and transmission lines adequate to the signal regime

The exam consists of two assessments that take place during an oral interview, lasting 45-60m. The first evaluation takes place on the program by two or three specific questions on several topics. The second evaluation takes place on a project that can be exposed directly on a laptop computer or by printing a report. The project consists in verifying through the SPICE simulator some theoretical framework explained in lessons, at the student's choice.

Teaching tools

Frontal lessons

Office hours

See the website of Marco Tartagni