ECE321/ECE521: RF Circuit Design

Instructor: Mohammad Hashmi
Teaching Assistants: Sushant, Vijay
RF Lab Contact Person: Rahul Gupta

Lecture: Mon & Thu (10:00-11:30) in C24
Lab: Wed 11:00-13:00 in RF & Applied EM Lab

Office Hour: Thu (17:00 to 18:00)
 

Course Outline and Policy

Description

This course is designed for exposure to circuits and systems design techniques for radio communications leading towards the recent research in the domain of advanced radio technology. In the first half of the course, students will be exposed to the fundamental concepts of passive and active circuits design at radio frequencies. These fundamental concepts require substantial understanding of transmission line theory and Smith chart and therefore this course will start with thorough discussion on these two topics. This half also includes training of students on the commercial software tool known as Advanced Design System (ADS). There will be tutorials on schematics, layout and optimization techniques to familiarize the students with the ADS. The students will have to subsequently do several design assignments using ADS. In the second half of the course, students will be introduced to design aspects of components such as matching networks, couplers, and power dividers etc. As part of the course projects, the students will have opportunity to carry out projects from conception to realization, PCB manufacture and then measurements using VNA.

Postconditions On the completion of this course the students will be able to:
1. Learn various RF Circuit design techniques.
2. Acquire hands-on skills to analyze and design simple components, such as matching networks, coupler, power divider etc, used in the Radio Communication Circuits.
3. Gain skills in using software tool ADS, PCB machine, and Vector Network Analyzer
Evaluation Following components are part of the overall evaluation:
Home Assignment
20%
Surprize Class Tests 15%
Mid-sem Exam 20%
Final Exam 15%
Project 30%

Home assignments are to be submitted by the due date.

Plagiarism is forbidden and will be seriously dealt with as per institute policy.
Attandance and Class Room Behavior 1. Students will be responsible for all course materials, announcements, notes etc. made during the regular class times.
2. Prompt arrival to the class is requested.
3. Smoking, drinking, and eating are prohibited in the class.
4. You need to switch off your Laptops, Phones, PDAs etc. in the class.



Lecture Schedule and Assignment Calendar

Week
 Lecture Topics Additional Reading Assignments Labs
1
  • Introduction (Lect_1-slide)

  • Transmission Line Introduction, Equivalent Ckt Representation, TL Parameters (Lect_2-slide)



RFCD Syllabus
2
  • Design of Microstrip TL, Lossless Transmission Line (Lect_3-slide)

  • Terminated Lossless Transmission Lines, Power Considerations (Lect_4-slide)


3

HA #1
HA#1 Demo on 27th Jan (in RF Lab)
4
  • Smith Chart - Solved Problems, Admittance Transformation (Lect_7-slide)

  • Multi-port Networks, Z-, Y-, and S-Matrix, Matched/Lossless/Reciprocal Networks (Lect_8-slide)
5
  • 3/4 port networks, S-parameters and Circuit Symmetry, Even/Odd Mode Analysis, Generalized S-Parameters, T-Parameters (Lect_9-slide)

  • The Signal Flow Graph (Lect_10-slide)

HA #2
HA#2 Demo on 10th Feb. (in RF Lab)
6
  • Impedance Transformation using Lumped Components, L-Networks (Lect_11-slide)

  • T- and Pi- Matching Networks, Microstrip Matching Networks, Quarter Wave Impedance Transformer (Lect_12-slide)
 Section 8.1.2 in Ludwig's Book

Two-stub Impedance Matching 		HA#3:IEEE Microwave Mag Paper - generate the plots in Figs. 3(a), 3(b), 4(a), and 4(b) using MATLAB
HA#3 Demo on 18th Feb in RF Lab during Lecture Slot
7
------XXXXX Mid-Sem Week XXXXX------



8
  • Quarter Wave Impedance Transformer (Multiple Reflection Viewpoints, Theory of Small Reflections, Frequency Response), Binomial Transformer, Tapered Lines (Lect_13-slide)

  • Power Divider and Coupler, Basic Properties, PD-Design Aspects (Lect_14-slide)
HA#4: Design a Rectifier Circuit (using Lumped and TL) to be used in Power Scavenging from GSM Radiations.
HA#4 Project Report to be Submitted on 6th April at 11:00am
9
  • Wilkinson Power Divider, Wilkinson Power Divider Analysis (Lect_15-slide)

  • Quadrature Coupler - slide also includes an example to be demonstrated in Lab session (Lect_16-slide)
Intro_to_Stub_Matching 
HA #5
HA#5 Demo on 16th March in RF Lab
10
  • Coupled-Line Coupler, Intro to Vector Network Analyzer (Lect_17-slide)
HA #6 		HA#6 Report to be Submitted on 30th March at 11:00am
11
                           ------XXXXX Holi Break XXXXX------


12
  • Filter: High Frequency Filter, Filter Phase Function, The Linear Phase Filter, Insertion Loss Method (Lect_18-slide)

  • Insertion Loss Method (Contd), Filter Transformations, Stepped Impedance Method (Lect_19-slide)

13
  • RF Transistor Characteristics, Two Port Power Gains, Turning Gain Element into an RF Amplifier (Lect_20-slide)
HA #7 		HA#7 Report to be Submitted on 13th April at 11:00am
14
  • Stability, Intro to Transistor Amplifier Design (Lect_21-slide)

  • Lect_22: Intro to Transistor Amplifier Design (contd.)





If you have a question, Please follow the sequence before you reach the bottom of the list:

  1. Search for the answer yourself. In most cases the answer is available on this page or on assignment handouts
  2. Ask your friend in class
  3. Ask your TAs
  4. Ask instructor in lecture
  5. Ask instructor in office hours
  6. Send your TA email
  7. Send instructor email. Note that, this is the worst scenario.

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