Time and Place
Monday, March 15, 4:00pm, https://illinois.zoom.us/j/96972752638?pwd=Z3hqdUxYamNJazNYRkR0V1JmM0padz09
Old Business
- Proposal for a temporary course in fall 2021, ECE 498JZ, Radio Frequency IC Design. This will be the second offering of this course. 498JZ_FA2021_CircuitAreaSigned.pdf, Project_v2_Task3.pdf.
Responses to questions raised by the committee last time:
Q1: What are the final projects like? Can you list some final projects?A: The course project in fall 2020 was to design a 3.5-GHz receiver front-end for 5G new radio in a 180-nm CMOS technology. See attached for the document.
Q2: Why are there both final projects and a final exam?
A: The final project was broken down into multiple weekly tasks, replacing homework assignments in the last month of instruction.
Q3: Would this course benefit from having a 4-hour version for graduate students? Most grad courses are four hours.
A: How can I make it a 4-hour version? The similar 482 (digital IC design), and 483 (analog IC design) both have 3 undergraduate/graduate hours.
Q4: Can you provide more detail about what is covered in each of the syllabus topics?
A: See the fall 2020 course website for more details: https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece498jz/fa2020/outline.html
Q5: What is meant by “5.3 contact hours”?
A: Total time of lecture and office hour.
Q6: What are the homework assignments – pencil and paper, computer?
A: Both pencil-and-paper and computer simulations.
Q7: Do students get experience with IC design software? What type?
A: Yes. Cadence and Spectre RF.
Q8: Can you provide a copy of the course web page so that the committee can see more about the content of the course?
A: Yes. Here is the fall 2020 course website: https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece498jz/fa2020/outline.html
Q9: The committee is interested in having a conversation with you and Jose about the relationship between this course and ECE 453.
A: I will be happy to have a discussion with Jose and the committee. A couple of differences in addition to those mentioned in the course request. This course is about designing CMOS-based consumer devices e.g. smartphones, while 453 is about designing RF systems for high-performance systems such as cellular base stations. The former uses Cadence as the EDA tool while the latter often relies on Keysight ADS.
Q10: Main topics are amplifiers, mixers, and receivers. These are the same as the main topics of ECE 453. The key difference seems to be that this course covers IC design principles instead of stand-alone component design; what is the impact of that difference on the content that you actually teach students?
A: The lumped nature of RF IC design results in a circuit-based analysis and design methodology. Hence, when compared to 453, it has much less emphasis on EM and microwave engineering concepts and techniques, such as
Coming-Soon Business
The following two courses have not yet been approved by their respective areas; they will be considered once the areas have approved.
- Proposal for a temporary course in fall 2021, ECE 498SB, Manipulation of Elementary Quantum Systems. This will be the first offering of this course. ECE 498SB Manipulation of Elementary Quantum Systems class request form_2021.pdf, F21_ECE498SB_Syllabus_v2.pdf
- Proposal for a temporary course in fall 2021, ECE 498AF, Microwave Vacuum Power Electronics. This will be the first offering of this course. ECE498AF-Fa21-CC&GC.docx
- Proposal for a temporary course in fall 2021, ECE 498EC, Quantum Information Processing. This will be the third offering of this course. 498EC_Course_request.pdf, Syllabus_ver1.pdf