EE122A was taught for decades at Stanford as a hands-on introduction to mixed-signal and, later, embedded electronics. Generally aimed at “mezzanine” level EE students (junior year through early graduate studies), the class had significant numbers of non-EE majors all the way up through post-doctoral students.
Over the years, the class evolved to embrace new technologies and concepts that diffused from graduate to undergraduate level. I was blessed to have co-taught the labs with the late Jim Williams (guru and mentor of analog) and partnered in later years on all aspects of the course with Dr. Laurent Giovangrandi, a humble genius.
The main overt goals of the class were to provide a basic set of practical knowledge on basic mixed-signal circuits, as well as hands-on skills working with real electronics (to “boldly go where SPICE cannot” – please do not bust me for the split infinitive, it was pioneered by Star Trek’s authors). The covert goals were really around teaching teamwork and most importantly how to understand and navigate the increasingly complex trade-spaces within the circuit design process. For example, the well-liked filters lab exposed students to the trade-offs in size, weight, power and cost (SWAP-C), as well as tuning/reprogrammability of filters. This required comparison of inductor-capacitor (LC), active (op-amp), switched capacitor and digital (DSP) filters. That was done in just the one (long) lab by using several pre-built demonstration boards as well as student-built circuits.
Looking back, I’d say that it worked quite well for several generations of students, building confidence and experience. Those who kept in touch over the years expressed appreciation for the experience.
With the gradual drift away from an internally required core of knowledge or EE undergraduates and the abandonment of external requirements (ABET, which Stanford dropped), courses such as electromagnetics, and, sadly, EE122A became elective. As is often the case “hard work” elective classes tend to dwindle in student enrollment, and in an already small department like Stanford’s, this leads to losing TA funding and, eventually, it becoming impractical to offer the material. So, after the last offering of the class in the 2015 – 2016 academic year, I decided to put the notes back online and hope to gradually revise them.
As always, it is your responsibility to be safe with electronic circuits – the author and the VoidLoop team are not responsible in any way for damages, injury or other issues created through the use or abuse of information provided by us.
I hope these notes, and those for the companion EE122B class covering biomedical instrument design, are of use to the community.
Greg Kovacs
Palo Alto, California, July 2020