Handbook

The world we live in is fundamentally analogue in nature. Signals like electromagnetic waves received by cell phones, radios, and TVs, as well as ambient factors like temperature, pressure, movement, and sound, are all analogue in nature. However, despite their analogue origins, these signals are processed and stored digitally using microprocessors and microcontrollers. Thus, analogue circuits are necessary in building the bridge between the analog and digital realms. Analog circuits are ubiquitous in everyday devices such as home appliances, vehicles, cell phones, medical equipment, computers, audio/video systems, and radio/TV sets, shaping our modern lives in profound ways.

Analogue circuits play a crucial role in performing key signal processing and conditioning functions like amplification, comparison, waveform generation, and analog-to-digital (A/D) as well as digital-to-analog (D/A) conversions. They typically comprise transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and inductors, often integrated into circuit forms. In prior courses (ELEC1111 and ELEC2134), you learned circuit analysis techniques involving resistors, capacitors, and inductors. This course endeavors to expand on that knowledge by introducing you to analogue circuits with transistors and diodes, enhancing your skills in analyzing and designing such circuits. You will have the opportunity to apply the skills to implement analogue circuits and measure their performances such as amplifier gain and bandwidth in the laboratory setting. These implementations are critical in providing you with "hands-on" experiences that include circuit simulation, physical construction of the circuit, troubleshooting of circuits and using measurement laboratory equipment with safety at its core.

Course content includes: Device physics of diodes, BJTs and MOSFETs. Nonlinear transistor models: Ebers-Moll, transport. Full and simplified models of BJTs and MOSFETs (inc. small-signal models). Zener and Schottky diodes. DC biasing, biasing using current sources, operating point, large-signal analysis. Linearisation, small-signal analysis. Input and output impedances, power gain. Two-ports. Feedback, effects of feedback; stability and compensation techniques. Circuits with non-ideal op-amps. Common base, emitter and collector amplifiers; differential pairs. Multistage amplifiers, Cascades, Cascodes. AC response of 1-stage and multistage amplifiers, Miller effect. Non-linear circuits: oscillator, Schmitt trigger. Analogue-to-Digital converters (ADC) and Digital-to-Analogue Converters (DAC) principles.