Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Lecture #01 (Chapter 01)

: Why Microelectronics?

Prof. Yoon, Sang Won

Sustainable Mobility EE Technology (SMEET) Lab.

Semiconductor-package Module EE Technology (SMEET) Lab.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Seoul National University

Spring 2025
Prof. Sang Won Yoon
 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Contents
▪ 1.1 Electronics versus Microelectronics

▪ 1.2 Example of Electronic System

▪ 1.3 Analog versus Digital

▪ A short review of electrical circuits

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Electronics versus Microelectronics

• Electronics : general term
• Microelectronics : specifically relates to manufacture of very
small electronic circuits

Wikipedia

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Electronics versus Microelectronics

• Beyond Moore’s law (maybe upgrade is better term)

IMEC

NY Times
TSMC

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Semiconductor Packaging
▪ Package is a bridge b/w semiconductor device and system.
• Conventional semiconductor package

• Advanced semiconductor package

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Examples of Electronic System

▪ Cellular Technology
• An important example of microelectronics.
• Microelectronics exist in black boxes that process the received
and transmitted voice signals.

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Example of Electronic System

▪ Frequency up-conversion
• Voice is “up-converted” by multiplying two sinusoids.
• When multiplying two sinusoids in time domain, their spectra are
convolved in frequency domain.

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Transmitter
• (a) two frequencies are multiplied and radiated by an antenna.

• (b) a power amplifier is added in (b), to boost the signal.

- To produce a sinusoid, an oscillator is needed.

Mixer

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Receiver
▪ It is necessary to have amplifiers, oscillators, and multipliers to
transmit and receive the signal in a cell phone.
• High frequency is translated to zero center frequency by multiplying by
fC. (+ low-pass filter)
• (b) : A low-noise amplifier (LNA) is needed for signal boosting without
excessive noise.

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Digital Camera
• The image sensor array of ‘pixels’ in a digital camera
• Each pixel is composed of a photodiode & a capacitor

Pixel-by-
pixel
analog
voltage
transfer

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

ADC in Digital Camera

▪ Sharing one ADC between two columns of a pixel array
• Time shared: 2500 columns = 1250 ADCs
• ADC required : for the operation twice as fast

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Analog and Digital Signals

• An analog voltage waveform swings through a “continuum” of
values and provides information at each instant of time

• Noisy analog signal

• Difficult to store

• ‘Binary’ digital waveform → easy to store

• More robust than analog counterparts

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Digital or Analog?
▪ Machines love digital while the nature loves analog.
• Analog-to-digital or digital-to-analog converting is necessary.
• A digital signal operating at very high frequency is very “analog”.
- X1(t) is operating at 100Mb/s and X2(t) is operating at 1Gb/s.

0 1 0 0 1 1 0

0 1 0 0 1 1 0

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Analog Circuits: Amplification and Filtering

▪ Amplification
vout
• Voltage “gain”: Av = vout , Av dB = 20log
vin vin

General amplifier symbol Simplified diagram of Amplifier with

with its power supply amplifier supply rails omitted

▪ Filtering

Bandwidth ~ 1/speed
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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Digital Circuits
▪ More than 80% of the microelectronics industry deals with
digital circuits.
• Microprocessors, static (SRAM) and dynamic (DRAM)
memories, and digital signal processors
• Complexity, speed, and power dissipation are overall system
performances.

▪ What limits speed?, How much power?, How robust to noise?

Noisy digital signal

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Review: Basic Circuit Theorems

▪ Kirchoff Current Law (KCL) I
j
j =0

▪ Kirchoff Voltage Law (KVL) V

j
j =0

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Review: Basic Circuit Theorems

▪ Thevenin equivalents
• Thevenin’s theorem states that a one-port network can be
replaced with an equivalent circuit consisting of one voltage
source in series with one impedance.
- VThev is calculated by leaving the port open and computing the
voltage.
- ZThev is computed by applying the voltage across the port and
obtaining the current. Computation of equivalent
impedance
Thevenin’s
equivalent
circuit

Turn off independent

sources (0 V, 0A)

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Review: Basic Circuit Theorems

▪ Norton Equivalents
• Norton’s theorem states that a one-port network can be replaced
with an equivalent circuit consisting of one current source in
parallel with one impedance.
- INor is calculated by shorting the port and computing the current.
- ZNor is determined by setting all independent V & I sources to zero
and calculating the impedance seen at the port.

Norton’s equivalent circuit

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 Introduction to Electronic Circuits & Labs

Example Problems
• (Ex. 1-5) This is the equivalent circuit of an amplifier. The
dependent current source is i1 = gm x vπ. Determine the voltage
gain of the amplifier, Vout/Vin.

A: -gmRL

• (Ex. 1-8) Determine the Thevenin equivalent circuit.

A: vthev=vout= -gmRLvin A: Rthev=Vx/ix=RL

• (Ex. 1-11) Please do by yourself.

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