The first stop in your journey to learn the art of electronics! We will be covering a large volume of material during this quarter. Hopefully, this course will be both informative and fun.
There are four main topics covered in the course:

1.      Physics of conduction in semiconductors
2.      Solid-state diodes and their use in non-linear circuits
3.      Physics and applications of Field Effect Transistors (FET)
4.      Logic circuit design

We will begin with a study of the phenomenon of conduction in semiconductors. This provides the basis for understanding the principles of operation for two very important classes of electronic components: diodes and FETs. After a comprehensive study of these components, we will use them to design and build logic gates and more complicated circuits. By the end of this quarter you will be able to:

1.      Calculate conduction properties of materials and simple device structures
2.      Explain the operating principles of semiconductor diodes and FETs
3.      Determine the in-circuit operating state of diodes and FETs
4.      Perform large signal analysis of circuits containing semiconductor diodes and FETs
5.      Use a modern schematic capture and computer-aided circuit analysis program (SPICE)
6.      Calculate the performance parameters for different MOS logic families

By the end of the course, you probably will not be able to design a Dual Core Xeon processor, but you will be on your way!