ECE 18-420/620: Design, Integration, and Tapeout of IoT Systems – New in 2024 Fall
This course provides a comprehensive exploration of the design concepts and methodologies involved in developing integrated circuits for Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Students will gain hands-on experience in designing and integrating essential blocks such as sensor front-ends, data converters, machine learning circuits, and wireless transmitters. Key concepts include an introduction to IoT system architectures, principles of sensor interfacing, analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), machine learning in IoT, RF front-end design considerations, an CMOS technology and design rules, overview of the tapeout process, and design exercises using industry-standard design tools. By bringing together individual blocks into a cohesive system, students will gain the skills and knowledge required to design, simulate, and tapeout a complete IoT system-on-chip by the end of this course. The course emphasizes a practical, project-based approach to ensure students are well-prepared for real-world challenges in IoT integrated circuit design. This course is crosslisted with 18420. ECE graduate students will be prioritized for 18620, and ECE undergraduate students will be prioritized for 18420. Although students in 18420 will share lectures with students in 18620, students in 18620 will undertake more complex projects.
ECE 18-723: RF IC Design and Implementation – Spring
This course covers the design and analysis of radio-frequency integrated systems at the transistor level using state of the art CMOS and bipolar technologies. It focuses on system-level trade-offs in transceiver design, practical RF circuit techniques, and physical understanding for device parasitics. Accurate models for active devices, passive components, and interconnect parasitics are critical for predicting high-frequency analog circuit behavior and will be examined in detail. The course will start with fundamental concepts in wireless system design and their impact on design trade-offs in different transceiver architectures. Following that, RF transistor model, passive matching networks will be discussed. Noise analysis and low-noise amplifier design are studied next. The effects of nonlinearity are treated along with mixer design techniques. Practical bias circuit for RF design will be illustrated. Then, the importance of phase noise and VCO design will be considered together. The course will conclude with a brief study of frequency synthesizer and power amplifier design. Senior or graduate standing required.
ECE 18-721: Advanced Analog Integrated Circuits Design – Spring
This course will familiarize students with advanced analog integrated circuit (IC) design issues. Analog circuit design issues play an important role in creating modern ICs. First and foremost, analog circuits act as the interface between digital systems and the real world. They act to amplify and filter analog signals, and to convert signals from analog to digital and back again. These analog interfaces appear in all communications devices (e.g., cell phones) - both to condition the "transmitted" signal and as sensitive "receivers." In addition, these analog interfaces appear in sensors (e.g., accelerometers). The goal of this course is to familiarize students with some of the advanced analog circuit design ideas that are involved in these tasks. Specific topics will include analog filtering (continuous-time and discrete-time), sample-and-hold amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, and digital-to-analog converters.
ECE 18-320: Microelectronic Circuits – Spring/Fall
The course will emphasize the analysis and design of basic analog and digital integrated circuits in preparation for further study in analog, digital, mixed-signal, and radio-frequency integrated circuit design. Additionally, students will learn to design and analyze microelectronic circuits using industry standard computer aided design (CAD) software. Topics to be covered include: MOSFET fabrication and layout MOSFET models for analog and digital design Analysis and design of digital CMOS logic gates Analysis and design of clocked storage elements (e.g., flip-flops, latches, memory cells) Delay optimization of digital circuits Circuit topologies for arithmetic and logical functional units Analysis and design of single-stage MOS amplifiers Frequency response characteristics of single-stage amplifiers Differential amplifiers and simple operational amplifiers Analog filters using operational amplifiers The course includes a lab component which will give students hands-on experience in the design and implementation of analog and digital circuits. Labs will employ both design using discrete, SSI, and MSI parts, as well as using CAD design tools.
ECE 18-421/623: Analog Integrated Circuit Design – Fall
Some form of analog circuit design is a critical step in the creation of every modern IC. First and foremost, analog circuits act as the interface between digital systems and the real world. They act to amplify and filter analog signals, and to convert signals from analog to digital and back again. In addition, high performance digital cell design (either high speed or low power) also invokes significant analog circuit design issues. The goal of this course is to teach students some of the methods used in the design and analysis of analog integrated circuits, to illustrate how one approaches design problems in general, and to expose students to a broad cross-section of important analog circuit topologies. The course will focus on learning design through carrying out design projects. Design and implementation details of wide-band amplifiers, operational amplifiers, filters and basic data converters will be covered. Example topics to be covered include transistor large- and small-signal device models, small-signal characteristics of transistor-based amplifiers, large-signal amplifier characteristics and nonidealities, operational amplifier design, basic feedback amplifier stability analysis and compensation, and comparator design. The course will focus primarily on analog CMOS, but some aspects of BJT design will be discussed.
