EE2C1 Transistor Circuits

This course extends the analysis of electronic circuits to circuits containing non-linear components as key building blocks for realizing essential functions such a switching and amplification. Noise is introduced as a fundamental limitation to signal quality, motivating the need for signal amplification. The physics of diodes and MOSFETs is explained at an intuitive level, and their characteristic equations are introduced. Large-signal operation is presented as approach to realize digital logic, with the CMOS inverter as basic building block. Biasing and small-signal operation are presented as approaches to obtain linearised behavior from non-linear circuits, and are applied to single-MOSFETs amplifiers (common-source, common-gate, common-drain stages). Amplifiers with feedback are introduced as a means of realizing ideal transfer functions. Finally, opamp-based amplifiers and single-MOSFET amplifiers are shown to be practical approximation of these ideal amplifiers.

Study Goals

After following this course, you should be able to:

1. Calculate noise levels and SNR based on the thermal noise of resistors.
2. Describe the behaviour of diodes and MOSFETs based on their characteristic equations.
3. Analyse the static large-signal behaviour of simple non-linear circuits, including the CMOS inverter.
4. Analyse non-linear circuits using small-signal analysis.
5. Calculate the small-signal parameters of single-transistor amplifiers based on MOSFETs.
6. Synthesize ideal amplifier transfer functions using passive feedback around active amplifiers.
7. Synthesize CMOS logic circuits to implement Boolean operations

Teachers

Last modified: 2024-09-04