ECE53B-LAB, (Winter 2004)
Farrokh Najmabadi


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General Information

Instructor: Prof. Farrokh Najmabadi
Office: 457B EBUII.
Office hours: Tuesdays 1:00-2:00 or by appointment (Send E-mail).
Phone: 534-7869
Click here to send E-email to Prof. Najmabadi (najmabadi@fusion.ucsd.edu)

Recommended Text Book for PSpice Programming:
"ORCAD PSpice for Windows, Vol. 1: DC and AC circuit," 3rd Edition by Goody (Required Text for ECE60L, available at the bookstore)
A detailed primer for using PSpice with the Schematic graphical interface. It is really meant as introduction to PSpice only. It does not cover any circuit analysis in depth as some PSpice books do (but you already have a circuit theory book!). Get this book only if you are going to use ORCAD PSpice. See notes for PSpice for more details.

Course Mechanics: The course material is reviewed in the lecture. Special Lab lecture is held on Mondays 5:00-5:50 at 104 SOLIS. The description of Lab exercises for the following week is also posted on the class Web Site. The Lab exercises are designed to enforce the material covered in the lecture and make students understand the differences between circuit models and practical circuits. We analyze many circuits by (1) simple analytical tools, (2) more detailed PSpice simulations, and (3) Lab measurements. In this way, the students will understand when various models apply and how to account for various effects. Each Lab includes a design problem: you are asked to design a specific circuits, simulate its response with PSpice, built in the Lab and see if it performs according to design specifications.

An essential part of the course work is PSpice simulation of various circuits. Lectures will not cover PSpice simulation syntax and students should learn PSpice on their own. However, Lab exercises are designed to introduce students to PSpice capabilities gradually. You can purchase commerical versions of PSpice, download freew versions from Web, or use the PSpice Lab (329 EBUII). (Click here for more info on PSpice)

Lab Teams: Lab work is done by teams of two students. You are free to choose your own partners, who must be in the same Lab section as you. Teams should be formed before the first Lab exercise. It is expected that both Lab partners will contribute equally to the completion of a Lab exercise. Take turn to be the leader and follower in each exercise. Get together to complete the Lab report so that both Lab partners fully understand the material.

Lab Preparation: You have one Lab exercise per week. Student should be throughly familiar with the Lab exercise before coming to the Lab (or it will take you much longer to complete the Lab). Each students should being to the Lab a complete circuit analysis or PSpice simulation of the Lab exercise i.e., you should have calculated all the currents and voltages in the circuit, you should know which state each nonlinear element is (e.g., if the transistor is in its active, saturation, or cut-off region), you should know why each element is in the circuit and why it has the value that it has. If an student does not bring a complete circuit analysis of the Lab exercise to the Lab, he or she will not be allowed to do the Lab exercise with all of the ramifications of not attending the Lab without prior approval.

Lab Reports: After completeing the Lab exercise, each team should prepare a Lab report. It is expected that both members of the team cooperate to complete the Lab report (rather taking turn preapring the Lab reports). The Lab report should include (for each Lab. experiment):

The motivation,
Circuit analysis/PSpice simulations (which you have done before coming to the Lab),
Experimental procedure (only if you had to do something speical to get your data),
Data (in tables and plots),
Comparison of data with circuit analysis and simulation,
Your Conclusions and speculations.

Clear presentation of the information is essential. The Lab report should be a complete description of what you did in the Lab and what you learned from it. It should be readable and understable by an ECE professional who does not know about your Lab. Equations and results materializing out of thin air without explanation are useless even if they were correct. Make sure that you explain what you are doing. At the same time, do not write long essays. Technical reports are an essential element of an engineer life. That is how you communicate with your peers and people working above you. The report should be coherent and understable so they convey to others that you fully understand what you are doing at the same time they should not be so long that come across as boring and stating the obvious.

Lab Reports Page Limit: Lab reports should be maximum of 7 pages EXCLUDING PSpice simulation results and Plots of experimental data.

More on Lab reports:
a) Lab report should be in order specified in the Web site (i.e., all material relevant to an experiment should be together).
b) Put your section day/time on the front page of the report.
c) Make sure to draw the circuit and mark curernts and voltages!
d) All numbers should have units. (e.g., i=2 is unacceptable, it should be i=2 mA).
e) A large number of students refuse to use engineering/scientific notations, i.e., use 1000000 instead of 10^6 or 1 M (or worth, 2154212.764 instead of 2.15 X 10^6, do you believe in all those significant digits?). This is a recipe for making huge mistakes in your math. Put your calculator display into Scientific Mode! Keep only three significant digits! f) Don't attach the lab description from the Web site to the lab report.
g) Don't directly copy and paste the PSPICE simulations to a WORD document. Attach the hard copy print out so the "time stamp" is there and/or print PSpice simulation to a file and paste the file (with date stamp) to WORD.
h) Suggestion: Box or clearly mark answers to the questions posed in the Lab description.

Due Dates and Late Reports: The Lab. reports are due at the time listed below in the Laboratory. They will be graded and returned to you a week later. Late reports will not be accepted unless prior premission has been obtained.
 
    Perform Lab Lab Report Due
Week 2: 1/12 to 1/16 Lab 1 (a TA will be in the PSpice Lab to help you learn PSpice)
Week 3: 1/19 to 1/23 Lab 1/Lab 2  
Week 4: 1/26 to 1/30 Lab 2 Lab 1
Week 5: 2/2 to 2/6 Lab 3 Lab 2
Week 6: 2/9 to 2/13 Lab 3  
Week 7: 2/16 to 2/20 Lab 4 Lab 3
Week 8: 2/23 to 2/27 Lab 4  
Week 9: 3/1 to 3/5 Lab 5 Lab 4
Week 10: 3/8 to 3/12   Lab 5

Attendance: Attending the Lab is mandatory. If you cannot attend for any reason, you must inform the Lab instructor in advance. Failure to attend the Lab without prior permission will result in a zero grade for that specific Lab. Missing a Lab is extremely serious since the Labs exercises build upon previous Labs. No Team will be allowed to start a new Lab exercise until they have completed and demonstrated a working setup of the current exercise (even if the student had got a zero for that specific Lab because of the lack of attendance.) The student(s) who had not attended the Lab. should complete the exercise in the agreed upon time with the instructor and submit a separate Lab report (also see, Lab reports, below).

Working in the Lab, SAFETY FIRST: (click here).

How to work efficiently in the Lab: Click here for some hints.