ECEN 4618 Advanced Electronics Lab

Lab 0: Lab reports for ECEN 4618

Each lab team will need to turn in 6 lab reports throughout the semester. These reports should be written using a word processor. Hand written equations and circuit diagrams are acceptable. Only one report per group should be turned in. It is expected that your reports be well written in both content and grammar. As a guideline, assume your reader is another electrical engineer who has not been exposed to the material. The reports should be as succinct as possible, but be sure not to leave out relevant material. A laboratory notebook will be very helpful in writing the report as well as performing the labs efficiently.

In general, the lab reports should include:

• Title page
• Abstract - A short abstract which summarizes the experiment
• Lab Experiment Objectives and Design Specifications
• Circuit Design - Analysis, equations, arguments, initial circuit diagram, and computer simulations used to select circuit configurations and component values
• Description of Experiments Performed
• Results of Experimental Verification and Design Iterations
• Final Circuit Diagram
• Summary of Actual Performance Versus Design Specifications, Conclusion
• Comments (optional) - Comments on the lab, suggestions

The following pages show the general form of the lab report and give more detail about the above elements.

Abstract: An abstract is a summary. The abstract should summarize the lab experiment and not be more than about half a page. Briefly describe the experiment objectives or goals, results, and any important details. For examples of abstracts, look at technical journals such as IEEE Transactions on Solid-State Circuits.

Lab Experiment Objectives and Design Specifications:

State the objectives, purpose, or goals of the experiment and the design specifications. These will usually be given in the lab instructions. Sometimes only a goal will be given, such as to design an analog-to-digital converter, and you will come up with the design specifications yourselves.

Circuit Design:

Before you build the circuit to do the experiments, you need to design it.

Circuit Analysis, Equations, Arguments, etc.: Explain how the circuit works. ALL circuit components and their values should be determined using equations from the data sheets, lab handouts, lab lecture, and your own circuit analysis or arguments. This is the theory part of the lab, the theory that will be tested when you build the circuit and perform the actual experiments to see if the circuit works as intended.

Initial Circuit Diagram: Include an initial circuit diagram, or schematic, of your circuit design. The circuit diagram should be labeled with:

• appropriate signal names
• appropriate component names
• component values

EVERY component on your prototyping board that is connected to the circuit should be included in the circuit diagram. It should be easy to build your circuit by looking at the circuit diagram only.

Computer Simulations: The computer simulation should VERIFY the basic operation of your circuit design. If it doesn't, there may be a design flaw which you can fix before building the circuit.

If the entire circuit is too large to simulate on the computer, smaller sections of the circuit can often be simulated in order to verify the circuit has been designed correctly.

Description of Experiments Performed:

Describe the experiments to be performed in order to verify that the circuit works. These will usually be given in the lab instructions.

Results of Experimental Verification and Design Iterations:

Results: Include the results of the experiment such as measurements, oscilloscope printouts, tabulated data, plotted graphs, etc. The lab instructions will usually indicate what results should be included in the report. Since your circuit design may change after building and testing it, the documented results should be for the final circuit implementation unless specifically told otherwise in the lab instructions.

Oscilloscope printouts should have the time/division and volts/division information on the printout and ALL WAVEFORMS SHOULD BE LABELED.

Design Iterations: As you perform the experiments, you may find that the circuit does not perform as intended. Reasons for this include:

• approximations, unknowns or errors in the design
• parasitic inductance, capacitance, and resistance due to the physical size and layout of the circuit
• time delays through the integrated circuit chips
• unforeseen behaviour of the integrated circuit chips

You will need to redesign parts of the circuit in order to try and meet the design specifications. This final circuit will result from the iterative process of designing and testing the circuit in order to improve it. You should document the design changes and reasons for them in this section, a laboratory notebook will be very helpful in doing this.

Final Circuit Diagram:

Include the circuit diagram resulting from your initial design and subsequent design iterations. The circuit diagram should be labeled with:

• appropriate signal names
• appropriate component names
• component values

Summary of Actual Performance Versus Design Specifications, Conclusion:

Briefly compare your circuit's actual performance versus the design specifications and include any important conclusions you got from the lab.

Comments: (optional)

Include your comments on the lab and suggestions for improvement.