ECE 4530 - Analog Integrated Circuit Design

General Information

From course roster: "Overview of devices available to analog integrated-circuit designers in modern CMOS and BiCMOS processes: resistors, capacitors, MOS transistors, and bipolar transistors. Basic building blocks for linear analog integrated circuits: single-stage amplifiers, current mirrors, and differential pairs. Transistor-level design of linear analog integrated circuits, such as operational amplifiers and operational transconductance amplifiers. Layout techniques for analog integrated circuits. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on design-oriented analysis techniques."

An intro to analog design. A must if you want to design circuits, and probably the most important class you'll take if you want a circuits job/internship. Counts as a CDE course.

Prerequisites

ECE 3150: there's some review at the start of the semester

Topics Covered

• Review: frequency response, bode plots, transfer functions, small signal analysis, device physics, amplifiers
• Single stage amplifier topologies (common source/gate/drain, degeneration, cascode, diff pair)
  • Low and high frequency analysis

• Fabrication process overview and variation
• Biasing (current mirror, replica bias)
• Op amp analysis and design (gain, input/output impedance, common mode/power supply rejection, bandwidth, drive strength, dynamic range, current consumption, headroom)
• Analyzing big nasty circuits by breaking into subcircuits
• "Inverter style design"
• Feedback
  • Stability

• Noise (thermal, shot, flicker)
  • Analyze in big circuits or in feedback

• Nonlinearity

Workload

• 5 problem sets, each taking many hours
  • These focus on the circuit analysis stuff
• 4-5 labs, each taking many hours
  • These focus on the circuit design
• Final project
• Review exam, midterm, final

Advice

• In Prof. Molnar's own words, if you're stuck on something for more than 10 minutes, go ask him (or a TA, or whoever is teaching the course). This stuff is not necessarily intuitive and probably won't sink in the first time around.
• Start early on the labs. It takes time to come up with a good design, and starting late almost ensures you turn in a bad design. Prof. Molnar is also willing to answer questions when you don't understand why your circuit doesn't work - but not late the night before it's due.
• Work with people if you can.
• It's usually okay to make approximations on math in this course, especially if you always state your assumptions. If you approximated too much but reach an answer, that's better than never being able to solve a mess of an equation.

Past Offerings

Semester	Time	Professor	Median Grade
Fall 2016	TR 10:10-11:25	Alyosha Molnar	B+
Fall 2017		Hazal Yuksel & Zach Boynton