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Our Vision
Electronics in the Electrical Engineering Curriculum
Analog and digital circuit design and electronic devices are one of the core course sequences in the undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum. As a gateway to the exciting and rapidly growing field of microelectronics, it is essential that these courses be taught well, both for future specialists and for those concentrating in other areas of electrical engineering or computer science. Students demand to learn material that is as close to modern applications as possible in order to stay motivated. Faculty are eager to introduce new concepts that previously have been taught in senior and even graduate-level courses into these core courses. At the same time, the courses must provide a solid foundation in the fundamentals of electronics rather than a sampling of the most popular current topics. Finally, circuit design, as its name implies, is a subject that should be well-suited for honing students' skills as engineering designers. All of these factors have forced a re-examination of the electronics sequence and opened the door to fresh approaches that are better adapted to the needs of students in the late 1990s.
A New Approach
This text offers an approach to analog/digital electronics and basic device physics that provides an answer to the changing demands on the undergraduate electronics courses. We have described these subjects in the context of modern silicon integrated circuit technology. This focus on ICs provides an efficient way to learn the central concepts of device physics and analog/digital circuits. It also motivates students by offering them many opportunities for early exposure to up-to-date applications.
In developing this text, we have paid careful attention to limiting the amount of material to only those concepts that are necessary for building a solid foundation in integrated devices and circuits. We have targeted an audience consisting of students who are embarking on a lifetime career in microelectronics and those students who are completing their study of this field. Our criterion in selecting topics was to avoid overwhelming students with extraneous information, while providing them with an appreciation for this exciting field. We made a concerted effort to partition material between the core electronics sequence and senior-level advanced courses in device physics, analog IC design, and digital VLSI design.
A Flexible Organization
This text is extremely flexible and has been class-tested in different "flavors" of core electronics courses. We feel that a large cross section of schools can make use of this text in a gateway course or course sequence. The device physics material is covered in multiple passes of increasing depth. The analog circuit design chapters are divided into CMOS-only and Bipolar/CMOS modules. As a result, the professor can set the precise device/circuit balance point to tailor a course to the specific needs of his or her students.
For example, a one-semester device physics course could be taught using Chapters 1-4, 6, and 7 including both the first and second pass material. A one-semester circuits-only course could be taught using Chapters 1, selected sections of 4 and 7 to describe the MOSFET and bipolar transistor, Chapter 5 for digital circuits, and Chapters 8-11 for analog circuits. By only considering CMOS circuits, the course could include one of the capstone chapters: Chapter 12 on op amp design and Chapter 13 on memory circuits. The book can also be used in a one-semester course that covers both circuits and device physics by using only the first pass of the device physics material and omitting Chapters 12 and 13. Our courses at UC Berkeley and MIT follow this syllabus.
The book can also be used in a two-semester core electronics sequence that covers all chapters. Today, many schools offer a one-semester device physics course followed by a two-semester circuit design course. By judicious elimination of non-essential material, this text allows undergraduate electronics to be taught in two semesters instead of three. As a result, microelectronics is more accessible to those not planning to concentrate in this area. It is our hope and intent that this text communicates the excitement and bright future of the microelectronics to a broad cross section of students.
Why Use this Text?
This text is designed to increase the effectiveness of core electronics courses. Some of its features are:
- An integrated circuit context throughout for both devices and circuits. Examples and problems use modern device parameters so that students are calibrated in today's IC technologies.
- Analog and digital (including memory) circuit design are treated in a modular form in a single text. Students are able to learn the analog nature of digital circuits such as static RAM memory cells and sense amplifiers.
- Device physics is dealt with in multiple passes that increase in complexity. Professors can incorporate varying amounts of this material depending on the needs of their students, without loss of continuity.
- A basic introduction to IC technology. Cross sections and layout help to put abstract device and circuit concepts into real physical structures. Students gain an appreciation for the variations in device and circuit parameters.
- Real-world design examples. Students are walked through the design process starting with simple approximations used in initial hand design and ending with refinement using SPICE simulations.
- Capstone chapters for both analog and digital circuit design tie together concepts taught throughout the text. Chapter 12 treats the design of integrated CMOS and BiCMOS operational amplifiers. Chapter 13 discusses the design of MOS static and dynamic memory circuits.
- Exercises, problems, and design problems of varying complexity are included in Chapters 2-13. Through the worked examples and design examples in the text, the student is exposed to the solution methods of IC engineers.
Supplements
In order to make it easier to use this innovative text, we have several supplements available through this world-wide web site. Lecture material from several versions of the course can be downloaded. In addition, teaching tips by @@Prof. JOE SCHMO of XYZ STATE UNIVERSITY@@ on using the text will be available. Comments and questions on the text can be submitted through an on-line form, which we hope will bring about greater interaction between the students and us.
A one-semester laboratory manual is available free of charge from the web site, which is used in a UC Berkeley junior-level electronics laboratory. The lab is based on a set of Microlinear, Inc. BiCMOS tile array "lab chips" that allow undergraduate students for the first time to measure modern integrated devices and analog and digital circuit building blocks. This set of chips is available from Electronic School Supply, Inc., 3130 Skyway Drive, Suite 108, Santa Maria, CA 93455, USA, (800) 726-0084.
A solutions manual is available free of charge to instructors adopting the text, with worked-out answers to all exercises, problems, and design problems.
Acknowledgments
There were several important contributors that helped us in the early stages of the development of this text and also through their thoughtful reviews during its creation. We are grateful for the helpful comments and suggestions by the following group: Professors Supriyo Bandyopadhyay at the University of Notre Dame, Giorgio Casinovi at Georgia Institute of Technology, Bradley Clymer at the Ohio State University, Terri Fiez at Washington State Univeristy, Steven Garverick at Case Western Reserve University, Ted Higman at the Universtiy of Minnesota, Ross Holstrom at the Univeristy of Massachusetts at Lowell, Robert Krueger at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Stephen Long at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Randy Moss at the University of Missouri at Rolla, Dr. Andrew Robinson, formerly of the University of Michigan and now at Advanced Technology Laboratories, and Dr. Laurence Walker of Digital Equipment Corporation.
The material in this book has been greatly influenced by our colleagues at UC Berkeley and MIT. In particular we want to thank Profs. Bernhard Boser, Paul Gray, Richard Muller, Bill Oldham, and Donald Pederson at UC Berkeley and Profs. Tayo Akinwande, Anantha Chandrakasen, James Chung, Jesus del Alamo, Clifton Fonstad, Qing Hu, Harry Lee, Rafael Reif, and Martin Schlecht at MIT.
Many of our students provided detailed comments and criticism. These include: Archana Goyal, Gani Jusuf, Cuong Pham, Wayne Yeung, and James Young at UCB and Tracy Adams, Steven Decker, Iliana Fujimori, Jeffrey Gealow, Gary Hall, Donald Hitko, Michael Lim, Joseph Lutsky, Daniel Reif, and Ching-Chun Wang at MIT. Wayne Yeung helped in developing examples for the device physics chapters. We would like to especially thank Raja Jindal at MIT who spent countless hours in helping to prepare and edit several chapters and Frank Cheung at UCB who tirelessly checked examples and prepared the solutions manual for the end-of-chapter problems. We would also like to thank Ms. Patricia Varley at MIT for her huge effort in manuscript word processing.
We are grateful to our editors at Prentice Hall for their efforts in bringing this book through the process of idea to reality. Alan Apt was instrumental in getting this text off to a good start and Sondra Chavez did a superb job on the developmental editing as well as helping us through the maze of manuscript preparation. Eric Svendsen and Marcia Horton provided valuable guidance near the end of this project. We would like to thank Mr. Ralph Pescatore at TKM for the final production and Mr. Scott Smith at Academy Art Works for final figure preparation.
Roger T. Howe
Charles G. Sodini
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