Physics 120 - Circuits and electronics

(Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.*)

Overview

The is a combined lecture and laboratory course. The lectures cover general principles in network theory, including conservation laws, feedback and linear systems analysis, and multi-stability, with a focus on applications to electronic circuits. They also include an introduction to the physics of semiconductor devices. The laboratories provide a means to learn practical aspects of circuit design, realization, and debugging.

The lectures take place in room 2622 York Hall, 8:00 to 9:20 AM on Tuesday and Thursday with noted exceptions. The Tuesday lecture is primarily devoted to a review of the upcoming laboratory excercise, while the Thursday lecture is primarily devoted to foundational material. There are twenty-two laboratory stations, split between adjacent rooms 3544 and 3574 Mayer Hall. There are two laboratory sessions, one on Tuesdays that runs from 2:00 to 5:50 PM and the other on Wednesdays, that runs from 12:00 to 3:50 PM. In addition, there is an open session on Thursdays from 2:00 to 7:00 PM that is covered by TAs.

Homework problems will be assigned on Monday and the solutions are due by midnight the following Sunday. They should be submitted as a single PDF through through Gradescope, which you can access through gradescope.com with the access code 97EYXN; there is a scanner in the laboratory. The grade for homework will be based on the number of problems seriously attempted.

Students work in pairs in the laboratory. The laboratory report, submitted separately by each partner, should be self-contained, clearly written, and succinct. Include scanned, hand-drawn circuit diagram as well as hand-drawn plots, oscilloscope screen dumps, and Excel and/or Matlab plots. Present the circuit(s), your measurements, your analysis, and your conclusions. Contrast your results with theoretical expectations, as appropriate. The report is due by midnight of the following Sunday. The report should be submitted as a single PDF through through Gradescope, which you can access through gradescope.com with the access code MNP7E3. Please remember to put your name, the laboratory section, your partner's name, your laboratory bench number, and the submission date on your report.

We will use Piazza for class discussions. Access is through piazza.com/ucsd/spring2019/phys120.

The course grade is based on laboratory work and reports (~60 %), homework (~10 %), midterm exam (~10 %) that is derived from homework, and a practical final exam (~20 %) that is derived from the laboratory exercises.

The majority of readings and some homework problems are from the textbook, Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) by Anant Agarwal and Jeffrey H. Lang, ISBN 1558607358 (8.5 Mb PDF). Handouts on the laboratory exercises, as well asauxillary material, are posted below. Additional textbooks are available in the laboratory. Lecture notes, which are meant solely as a guide to the topics covered as well as to delineate tedious algebraic manipulations, are posted prior to the lecture.

For Spring 2019 we are pleased to have Mr. Jacob Saret (3134 MH) as senior GSR teaching assistant, Mr. Victor Gunawan, Mr. Dewanshu Chhagan Sewake and Ms. Sahana Srikanth as GSR teaching assistants, and Mr. Bryan Elia, Ms. Kelly Adriana Garcia, Mr. Sincheng Huang, and Mr. Bob Wang as UG teaching assistants. Mr. Saret will further run review sections in 2702 Mayer Hall on 12:30 to 2:00 PM on Thursdays.

Running schedule for Spring 2019

Instructional Information

Data Sheets

Equipment Manuals

Auxillary materials

*Attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)