The goals of this course are: (1) to introduce basic concepts in Electrical and Computer Engineering in an integrated manner, (2) to motivate basic concepts in the context of real applications, and (3) to illustrate a logical way of thinking about problems and their solutions. Course exposes the student to the following list of selected topics from Electrical and Computer Engineering: Decomposing a complex system into its subsystems; applying basic circuits laws (e.g. Kirchhoff’s current and voltage laws, Ohm’s law) to analyze simple circuits that include resistors and sources; using piecewise linear behavioral models of active devices such as transistors, diodes, and Zener diodes for circuit analysis; analyzing basic circuits that include resistors, transistors, and diodes; understanding the operation of logic gates such as AND, OR, NAND, and NOR.

In the lab the students will analyze and measure simple circuits such as series and parallel connections, work with transistors as switches and build elementary logic gates.

Introduction to modern electronic systems such as telephone networks, television, radio, radar, and computers. Key discoveries such as the vacuum tube, transistor, and laser are covered. The fundamental operating principles are presented in a non-mathematical and historic context. The evolution of these technologies is presented in terms of the need for communication systems and their impact on society.

The goal of this course is to provide the student with a historical as well as contemporary view of science and technology and their interrelationship. It is then hoped that with information about the past and present aspects of science and technology some reasonable conclusion can be drawn concerning their futures.

The practitioners of science are scientists. However, we never refer to the practitioners of technology as technologists, rather, they are always referred to as engineers. Therefore understanding the process of engineering is to understand the process of technological development. The engineer of today is either making an old technology better of developing a new technology. As will be illustrated in the readings, engineering is a human endeavor that has existed since the dawn of human kind. To understand engineering and its roots is to understand and appreciate one of humanity’s greatest assets.

DC circuits: node and mesh analysis, superposition and Thevenin’s Theorem. AC circuits; phasers, power, and electromechanical systems. Transient analysis. Practical applications of the principles discussed in the lecture are undertaken in the laboratory portion of this course.

Circuit analysis using frequency domain techniques, Laplace Transforms, Operational amplifiers, elements of semiconductor devices, electronic circuits, and logic circuits. Practical applications of the principles discussed in the lecture are undertaken in the laboratory portion of this course.

Network circuit analysis, dependent voltage sources, source transformation, linearity. Thevenin’s Theorem, theory of inductors, capacitors, and impedance, fundamental waveforms, time domain response, and Laplace Transforms. Circuit problems will be solved using the computer-aided circuit analysis program SPICE.

Sinusoidal analysis, power measurements, three-phase circuits, complex frequency and network functions, resonance, scaling, frequency response, two-port networks, Fourier series and transforms.

Fundamentals of making electronic measurements. Students will learn how to use properly various instruments and how to troubleshoot in case of problems. Safety issues will be covered.

Continuous time signal models, convolution, superposition integral and impulse response. Fourier series periodic and a periodic signals. Parseval’s theorem, energy spectral density, Fourier transform and filters. Discrete time signals, difference equations, Z transforms, discrete convolution, discrete Fourier transform, and spectral windowing.

Electromagnetic field theory including Coulomb’s Law Gauss Law and Faraday’s Law. Use of Poisson’s equations with boundary values. Magnetic flux and the use of Gauss and Ampere’s Law. Development of Maxwell’s equations and the transmission of plane waves in free space and uniform, homogenous, isotropic media.

Application of time-harmonic Maxwell’s equations to EM wave propagation, transmission lines, waveguides, antenna, and numerical methods in EM.

Microwave and transmission line laboratory in EM wave propagation.

Finite-state machines in process control. Assembly language programming of the WDC 65816 16 bit microprocessor and its hardware system implementation. Dynamic RAM read/write and DMA access, hardware interrupts, I/O port addressing, and peripheral interface design. Microprocessor addressing modes, op codes, and arithmetic computation.

Hardware and Software laboratory in microprocessor systems.

Fundamentals of electromechanical energy conversion, electromechanical devices, and systems. Energy stat functions, force-energy relationships, basic transducers, and introduction to AC and DC machines.

Electrical machinery and power laboratory in power generation and transmission.

Ideal and nonideal operational amplifier circuits, diodes in nonlinear circuit applications, junction field-effect transistors (JFETs), metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) and bipolar junction transistors (BJTs), biasing techniques, gain and bandwidth, the design of amplifiers, and transistors as loads.

Electrical devices and circuits laboratory taken with Electrical Engineering 0254.

Number systems, codes, and truth tables. Logical hardware devices such as gates, inverters, tristate logic, flip-flops, and latches. Digital Circuits such as arithmetic units, comparators, code converters, ripple and ring counters, and shift registers. Design of combinational and sequential digital circuits.

Laboratory for Electrical Engineering 0256, Digital Circuit Design.

Topics include: mathematical modeling, transfer functions, systems transfer functions, root locus analysis and design, design analysis in the frequency domain.

Techniques of analog and digital signaling and communication. Amplitude modulation and angle modulation techniques of frequency and phase modulation. Digital signaling formats such as pulse code modulation and modulation schemes of amplitude, phase, and frequency shift keying.

Laboratory for Electronic Engineering 0300, Analog and Digital Communications.

Discrete Fourier Series and discrete Fourier transforms. Digital filter representation by matrixes and signal flow graphs, basic network structures, and design of infinite impulse (IIR) and finite impulse response (FIR) filters. Computer-aided design of IIR and FIR filters, computation of Fast Fourier Transform and Chirp Z Transform, and effect of finite register length in digital signal processing.

Computer network data protocols modulation methods, traffic and signaling.

Digital data communications, protocols, and coding. Digital data transmission, time-division and frequency-division multiplexing. Detection of digital signals in noise.

Verilog hardware description language and its applications to digital hardware system design.

Analysis and design of control systems using state variable techniques. State variable analysis, discrete and continuous. Linear vector spaces, eigenvalues, eigenevectors, controllability, and observability.

Experimentation on selected topics in Modern Control Theory.

Advanced study of electronic devices and their application to linear, non-linear, and digital circuits. Transistors, FET’s filters, oscillators, amplifiers, A/D, D/A, some integrated circuits, and VLSI’s. Software design problems emphasized.

An introduction to a hierarchical design methodology of VLSI. Study of basic logic elements and design methods in n MOS and CMOS. The Physics of MOS devices and the fabrication process. Design rules and computation of circuit parameters from layout. System level design.

Discrete data and digital control systems, signal conversions and processing, the Z transform and state variable techniques applied to digital control system. Time and frequency domain analysis techniques, stability of digital control systems, controllability, observability. Principles of design of digital control systems, including computer control.

Students may complete a regular course during semesters the course is not offered to meet prerequisite or graduation requirements with department chairperson approval. An instructor supervises the student.

Project assigned with the approval of the department chairperson and conducted under the supervision of a faculty sponsor.