Course Catalogue

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This course integrates and consolidates student knowledge of semiconductor physics, microelectronics devices, and mixed signal integrated circuits, through a series of practical laboratories-to allow students to solve real world engineering design problems.

A key professional skill in microelectronics is the ability to perform top-down design of mixed signal integrated circuits and systems, using state-of-art Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools, and test those circuits to ensure their compliance pre-defined specifications. This course will develop these skills in students.

Course will be delivered continuously in the traditional manner at UESTC

Mandatory Entry Requirements

None

Recommended Entry Requirements

None

None

None

Assessment

Laboratory practical: 75% (8 experiments assessed by laboratory reports)

Design Study: 25%

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those contributing to Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

Due to the nature of the coursework and sequencing of assessments, it is not possible to reassess the coursework laboratory.

The initial grade on coursework laboratories will be used when calculating the resit grade.

This course aims to develop student ability in practical implementation of mixed signal integrated circuit design, through theory, simulation, and circuit test and evaluation in realistic laboratory settings.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ describe the typical basic circuit blocks used in mixed signal design such as operational amplifiers, fully differential amplifiers, voltage references, ADC and DAC blocks;

■ extract relevant information from product datasheets and compare the features and benefits of similar devices using device parameters from datasheets;

■ describe the important parameters and specifications required to define components, blocks, and systems;

■ use simulation software on common circuit topologies and summarise the differences between theoretical and experimental results;

■ explain the concepts of libraries, components, and layout models in the context of integrated circuit design;

■ specify and design simple circuit blocks informed by both experiment, simulation, and theory;

■ specify, design, and build a parameter measurement system to test simple circuits; write a simple datasheet describing the circuit operation and the test results.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components of the course's summative assessment. In addition, students must submit the portfolio of material associated with the design study.

Students must attend at least 75% of the scheduled laboratory sessions.