The RF2 course covers integrated circuit design for RF circuits at schematic and layout level.
The goals include learning to design:
- Simple solutions
- To ill-defined complex problems
- With ill-defined complex boundary conditions
- With limited and non-ideal resources
- Using scientific methods
The skills you will develop in this course are very generic and will apply to a wide range of real-world problems. However, the focus in thourse is on applying these skills to high-frequency electronics.
The course uses a "flipped classroom" approach where you are expected to study items in advance of the lecture and prepare assignments. The lectures are then used to discuss the results of the assignments in a highly interactive way, complementing the items that you studied between the lectures.
All information that you need for this course is available at (or at least referenced from) this website. In the courses menu you will find an RF2 item with subitems for each of the aspects of this course:
- The topics that you are expected to prepare before a lecture can be found in the http://www.wirelessresearch.nl/RF2Prerequisites" class="wiki wikinew text-danger tips">section on self-study. These topics contain, in many cases, links to the material that you can use to study these topics. In addition, you can study individual topics in the Study Material section (also called "Web Environment") of the RF2 menu.
- The schedule of classes can be found in the item "RF2 Lecture Schedule" in theRF2 Annoucenement section. This provides you with the dates on which the specific topics will be discussed. Please note that the sequence might be different from the list in de section on self-study due to practical limitations (such as scheduling of labs, excursions, availability of lecturers etc.).
- The assignments that you are expected to prepare for a lecture are listed in the announcement on RF2 Intermediate Assignments in the RF2 Annoucement section. The description of the individual assignments can also be found in the http://www.wirelessresearch.nl/RF2Announcements" class="wiki wikinew text-danger tips">RF2 Annoucement section in individual postings for each subcircuit assignment.
- There will (soon) be tests that you can do to check whether you succesfully prepared for a lecture. Stay tuned for more information.
- Finally, there are http://www.wirelessresearch.nl/Videos in /media/video/Video/5SFE0/Lectures" class="wiki wikinew text-danger tips">video recordings and http://www.wirelessresearch.nl/RF2Slides" class="wiki wikinew text-danger tips">slide materials from this course and other courses, as well as recommended study/reference books.
- If you have questions (and we expect that you will, now or at least very soon ;-) ) we (the lecturers) are very eager to help you. In fact, not receiving questions makes us rather nervous ;-). You can find them and their availability in the announcement on RF2 lecturers. In addition, there are weekly Skype sessions as described in the same announcement, and there is an RF2 discussion forum in which you can not only ask questions but also answer questions from other students to show off your insights but also to deepen your understanding. Education research has shown that explaining an item to a (or another) student is an excellent way to enhance your own understanding as well. It is also a technique that I often use when I need to find a mistake in my own work: by explaining it to somebody else I very often find a mistake that I hadn't been able to identify in another way.
In addition, there are general tools that might be useful for the RF2 course well in the tools menu:
- A database with circuit performance data from literature and from student designs that you can read and extend.
- A checklist for design reviews that might be helpful in the lectures where we discuss design assignments, but also for checking your own designs.
- A simple circuit simulator that is mainly useful to get a global insight into the functionality of circuits but is too limited to do detailed design. It only offers time-domain (transient) simulation, no noise, very limit plotting options etc. However it is very good at visualizing the currents and voltages and offers immediate feedback on changes to the circuit topology and component parameters. In the "circuits" menu you can find many example circuits to explore and modify, and also an empty sheet to build your own circuit on. Using the "file import/export" menus you can save and load your circuits to an ascii description that you can (through copy/paste) store in a file, email, put in the forum etc.
The Online menu gives access to facilities for setting up your personal radio/tv station with news, weather forecasts, prefered music as well as information items about wireless systems and the RF2 course. You will need a special account for this, please contact me if you want to try this (experimental) facility. The second online tool is a live video stream that will allow you to attend RF2 classes (or, for that matter, lab demos, colloquiums etc.) when you can't be at the university, for example when you are doing an internship on the other side of the world. Please contact your lecturers for the key required to get access.