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ECE343

ECE343 (Electronic Circuits Laboratory) is a 1-credit-hour course that satisfies the hardware lab requirement for EEs. This course qualifies as a technical elective for CEs. It is offered in the fall and spring semesters.

Content Covered

  • Passive filters
  • Diodes
  • MOSFET large signal model
  • MOSFET applications
  • Power supplies, voltage regulators

Material in this lab is closely related to that of ECE342. You will work with fundamental circuits, investigating the different components of each circuit and seeing how changes in these components affect output characteristics. Main topics include RC filters, practical usage of diodes, MOSFET characterization, evaluation of CMOS logic circuit characteristics, and the use of rectifiers, filters, and voltage regulators to design an AC-DC power supply. In each lab, you will analyze circuits, simulate circuits using LTspice, physically build circuits, and take measurements of your circuits using Scopy. You will also use MATLAB to plot your measurements. In the final lab, you will design an AC-DC power supply according to given specifications and solder your power supply onto a PCB.

Prerequisites

Students interested in taking ECE343 should do so concurrently with ECE342. It may be taken later, however, the two courses complement each other nicely and taking ECE343 will help students do well in ECE342 and future courses in circuits.

When to Take it

If you are planning to take ECE342 and want to gain experience in the simulation and design of electronic circuits, you should take ECE343. As virtually every field of electrical engineering involves circuits, taking ECE343 is a good idea for all electrical engineering students to reinforce the theoretical concepts of ECE342 and prepare students for more advanced circuit design courses and for industry. This class should be taken as soon as possible by any students interested in hardware and circuit design.

Course Structure

The workload for this course is fairly light. ECE343 meets once a week and consists of five labs, with the first four lasting two weeks and and the final lab lasting five weeks. Students complete the corresponding portion of each lab individually, outside of the scheduled lab period. The lab consists of working through and answering questions in a lab manual, similar to that of the lab section of ECE210, constructing circuits, taking measurements using Scopy, performing simulations using LTspice, and plotting the results of the simulations using MATLAB or Python. During the lab period, students will demo their lab and show the required section of their lab manual to the TAs, including the results of any simulations they might have done. Students use the equipment in the lab - oscilloscopes, function generators, and DC supplies - to demonstrate their lab, rather than Scopy. The lab manual and simulation results are submitted at the end of each lab.

Instructors

This class is usually led by TAs who are graduate students in the microelectronics or integrated circuits fields. Recently the course director has been Professor Radhakrishnan, who usually comes in at the beginning of lab sessions to overview the procedure. Expect most instruction to come from the TAs, though.

Course Tips

Most material is covered in ECE342 before it appears in the lab, but there are some cases where students will encounter topics first in the lab, depending on the professor's pace in ECE342. Fortunately, the TAs hold office hours twice a week, which are quite helpful for answering any questions you might have about the lab. Start early; do not wait until the lab section to ask the TAs for help.

Life After

Students who have taken and enjoyed ECE343 are well prepared for a variety of courses related to hardware and circuits. If you wish to pursue circuit design and simulation further, you should consider taking ECE483 - Analog IC Design. This course builds heavily off of the analog portion of ECE342 and ECE343 and is an excellent course for students interested in integrated circuits or for electrical engineering majors in general.

If you enjoyed the lab on digital CMOS logic circuits, you should consider ECE482 - Digital IC Design. ECE482 covers and builds upon many concepts introduced in this lab, including noise margin, propagation delay, and power dissipation.

ECE343 is a prerequisite specifically for ECE469 - Power Electronics Laboratory. If you liked the final lab on AC-DC converters, you should consider taking ECE469 and its companion, ECE464 - Power Electronics.

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