Observations on the Final:
Problem 1. (OpAmp) Majority of the class got this right.
Problem 2. (Bias) Most of the class got part A right. Very few got part
B right. A lot of explanations were incoherent.
Problem 3. (NMOS NOT Gate) Most of the student got this right.
Problem 4. (Active filter design). A good portion of the class did not
say why they choose the circuit ( K > 1 and wide-band). Only one person in the
class checked the OpAmp chip bandwidth!
Problem 5. (BJT amplifier). Almost everyone got this right. Good Job.
Problem 6. (Bias point). Majority of class got the operating point of
TR1 right, very few got the operating point of TR2. Almost everyone assumed
that BJTs are in active and did not check it.
Problem 7. (FET NOR gate). Almost everyone got this one right.
General
1) A sizable minority cannot do circuit analysis.
Ladies & Gents, you should be able to write KVL and KCLs and be correct 99.9%
of the time. You need to know this if you want to
be a EE.
2) Grades tremendously suffered because a lot of students do sloppy work: messy
write-up leading to forgetting terms, decimals moving around, etc.
3) A good size minority still do not understand that commercial
resistors/capacitors are not precise and have tolerances. They tried to
"built" a resistor/capacitor value not available commercially by putting other
resistors/capacitors together.
For 5% resistors, a 1k resistor has a value between 950 and 1050 Ohms. If you
want to have a resistor with a value of 1025 ohm, you should NOT put a 1k and a
25 ohm resistor in series,. The value of the two resistors in series would be
1000 +-50 + 25 +-1 = 1025 +-51 . This resistor combination would have a value
between 974 and 1076. It wold NOT be 1025 Ohms! If precision is required, one
would use resistors/capacitors with smaller tolerances (which cost more!)
Click here for
solution to Midterm.
Click here for
Distribution of Midterm Score.
(Great Job!)
TA office hours are on Wed. 12-2 in the Lab.
The following two useful write-ups describe the fundamentals of Scopes and
Probes.