ECE 250 -ELECTRONIC DEVICE MODELING
 

 Course description: This course is intended to provide you with the basic understanding of the nonlinear devices used in electronic circuits, such as diodes and transistors. Amplifiers, power supplies, digital systems are all built from  these nonlinear circuits. We will explore how these circuits are used in basic electronic circuits, how they are modeled for analysis and design and how they are built to achieve the nonlinear properties.

Topics will be covered in the following order: theoretical analysis, simulation and laboratory verification.

Theoretical Analysis of the circuit is covered to understand the operation of the circuit or to design a circuit. Various type of devices’ models will be presented.

Circuit Simulation using industry standard analysis tools is used to verify the theoretical analysis or circuit design.  Circuit simulation is important because simple models used for hand calculations cannot encompass all of the nonlinearities and ideallities associated with even simple circuits.

The circuits will be constructed in the labs if the simulation agrees with the theoretical analysis. Measurements of the circuit performance are made and compared to the theoretical calculations and simulation results.  

 Course objectives:

 By the end of this course, you will be able to:

·        Characterize 2 and 3 terminal devices by means of I-V plots

·        Derive a linearized small-signal model given the large signal characteristics

·        Describe a circuit and analyze its operation in terms of the bias and midband, or its large-signal switching model

·        Use PSPICE or other computer simulation tool to model circuit behavior and discuss the difference between the DC, time-domain and frequency domain analysis

·        Measure the DC characteristics of a 2 or 3 terminal device in the laboratory.

·        Construct and test small  rectifier and transistor circuits in the laboratory

·         Use elementary troubleshooting techniques and critical error analysis in the laboratory

·        Use standard written and oral formats to report laboratory/computation results

·        Demonstrate the similarity of operation between between all 3 terminals devices that can be used as amplifiers or switches

·        Show how these three  terminals devices can be used as switches or amplifiers

·        Emphasize single-stage amplifiers using topologies found in integrated circuits

·        Understand the impact of thermal and optical effects on semiconductor devices

·        Understand  the properties of semiconductor materials such as doping, carrier concentration, conductivity, drif and diffusion current and introduce a qualitative understanding of the device construction and operation