HIS HOMEPAGE contains information about the first-year subject Basic Electronics offered in the second semester of 2004/2005. It tells you everything about this course, including its aims, syllabus, philosophy and operation.

• What is this course for?
• What you will learn
• Lecture and tutorial schedule
• Assignments and laboratory sessions
• Assessment
• Supplementary materials
• Final advice
• References

Being majored in engineering physics, you may wonder why you would have to do an electronics course. One obvious reason is that the electronics industry may be one of the career destinations for physics students. To prepare yourself for a career in electronics, you may need to know at least the basics of electronics. Secondly, electronics is founded from physics, so it naturally constitutes a very good subject for physics students in applying their skills learnt elsewhere in the programme in dealing with physical problems. At any rate the study of electronics should prove to be beneficial to you, regardless of it being an example subject for stretching your physical minds or being a practical subject that prepares you for a career. On the pedagogic side, this subject is an introductory subject, to be followed by another subject in second year. So, you may consider this as a foundation subject that prepares you to study more advanced courses in electronic circuits.

1. Circuit analysis (3 weeks):

   As far as I understand, your A-level course in physics has introduced some basic circuit analysis methods. Here, we strengthen the concepts of circuit analysis and study the techniques for solving circuit problems more systematically. We will cover the analysis of resistive circuits and the applications of some important circuit theorems.

2. Transient analysis (2 weeks):

   When circuits contain dynamic components (i.e., ones that change with time), the analysis must consider the use of differential equations. Here, we consider simple first-order dynamics arising from circuits that have only one effective equivalent dynamic component. In electronics, the dynamic components are either capacitors or inductors.

3. Diode circuit (1 week):

   We begin our discussion of semiconductor components with the simple diode. Here our emphasis is the operation in terms of terminal voltage and current, without reference to the detailed physics of the semiconductor operation. We will study the analysis of some simple circuits containing diodes.

4. Transistor devices (1 week):

   Probably one of the most important electronic components nowadays is the transistor. It is used in signal amplification. Here we will introduce the basic concepts of transistor operation, focusing mainly on the bipolar junction transistor (BJT). We will consider the basic operating features of BJT, e.g., cutoff, saturation and active operation.

5. Amplifier configurations (2 weeks):

   One important application of BJT is for signal amplification. In order to understand how a BJT can be used to amplify a signal, we will examine the basic common-emitter configuration and study its operation in terms of a load line analysis. A small-signal modelling approach will also be introduced to simplify the analysis and to put the operation in the light of circuit models.

6. Operational amplifiers (1 week):

   A standard all-in-one amplifier design that has already been integrated in what we call Integrated Circuit (IC) chips is the operational amplifier. We will study the ideal form of operational amplifiers and consider some simple applications. Some practical problems will also be discussed.

7. Digital circuit design (3 weeks):

   Digital circuits are often used in handling logic problems and in processing a programmed operation. Here we will touch upon the basic concepts of logic design, focusing on the combinational logic design and simple sequential logic design. The purpose is to show you how simple logical functions can be implemented electronically, e.g., traffic light control.

This year, the weekly 2-hour lecture is scheduled on every Wednesday, from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. Moreover, a tutorial session is scheduled on Friday, 12:30pm to 1:30pm.

Tentative Dates	Topics	Notes
19 January - 2 February	Circuit analysis	(668 KB) hardcopies will be provided
16 February - 23 February	Transient analysis	(380 KB) hardcopies will be provided
2 March	Diode circuits	(224 KB) hardcopies will be provided
9 March	Transistor devices	(320 KB) hardcopies will be provided
16 March	Amplifier configurations	(724 KB) hardcopies will be provided
23 March	MID-SEMESTER TEST Coverage: everything taught to date
30 March	Amplifier configurations (continued)	ditto
6 April	Operational amplifiers	(1.3 MB) hardcopies will be provided
13 April	Digital circuit basics: combinational logic	(80 KB) hardcopies will be provided
20 April	Digital circuit basics: sequential logic	(548 KB) (608 KB) hardcopies will be provided
27 April	Revision

I will hand out problem sets from time to time, which contain practice problems related to the course. Submission of selected problems will be required, as assignments. You must try to work out solutions all on your own. During the tutorials, I will explain some of the problems related to the assignments. Remember assignments do count towards your continual assessments.

1. Assignment 1: Problem 5 (a) to (e), and Problem 6 of Chapter 2
2. Assignment 2: Problems 1, 4, 6 of Chapter 3, and Problem 5 of Chapter 4
3. Assignment 3: Problem 1 of Problem Set No. 3

The following additional problem sets will be handed out in class:

• Problem Set No. 1 (656KB pdf file)
• Problem Set No. 2 (528KB pdf file)
• Problem Set No. 3 (152KB pdf file)
• Problem Set No. 4 (xxxKB pdf file)

Laboratory work is compulsory. Two students will form one group. In each session, you will be required to perform one of the following three experiments. After three weeks, you will complete all three experiments.

The lab sessions are on 24 March, 31 March and 7 April 2005, at Lab CF005, from 12:30pm to 3:30pm. Reports have to be submitted one week after the lab session.

There will be a mid-semester test for the purpose of assessment. It will happen on 23 March 2005.

The written examination will consist of a 2.5 hour paper, which contains a total of 6 questions, from which you have to choose 4 to answer.

Altogether, the mid-semester test, lab reports and assignments will account for 30% of the final marks, and the written examination will account for 70% of the final marks.

• Semi-log graph paper (73KB pdf file)
• Notes on two-port networks (180KB pdf file)

Learn with only your heart!

1. D.L. Schilling and C. Belove, Electronic Circuits - Discrete and Integrated, McGraw Hill, 2000.
2. C. K. Tse, Linear Circuit Analysis, London: Addison-Wesley, 1998.
3. A.S. Sedra and K.C. Smith, Microelectronic Circuits, Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, 1998.

    

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   Michael Tse, 17 January 2005