Messages

Published Apr. 24, 2025 10:50 AM

Please: if you are done for the day, remove your measurement setup from the work place and tidy everything up, so that others can use that place!!! Do not leave your stuff laying around. There is lockers outside the lab where your can store your PCBs. You can use your own padlock to lock these.

Published Apr. 24, 2025 10:48 AM

Please re-download MDO_GetWaveform.m: the offsett problem is solved in the new version. For recordings with hte old version, just state that there is an extra offset in your figure due to an earlier bug in the function. If you still have the original data, you can also correct that offset, but if not, just add a statement in the report.

Published Apr. 23, 2025 3:13 PM

MDO_GetWaveform might falsely add an offset to the y-axis data that you download from the scope. This may be the case if you move a waveform up and down on the scope-screen and its zero reference (indicated by a little arrow on the left of the screen) is not zero (i.e. in the middle of the y-axis). It looks like MDO_GetWaveform will unnecessarily subtract that deviation from the data it receives. I will verify this tomorrow and upload a corrected version. In the meantime, be aware of the issue and you may check what the vertical offset is on the scope (you can see it while you adapt it for a channel with the nob on the oscilloscope) and add that offset again from your data. So if the offset is -3V you just subtract 3V from your data ...

Published Apr. 10, 2025 9:56 AM

- Note that the phase margin is based on observing the LOOP gain!!! Here we only see the total system's (closed loop) gain and it is not really easy to identify the loop. So looking at phase shift and unity gain frequency of the total system does not give you clear clues on where the phase shift and unity gain frequency of the LOOP may be. Check figure 5.20 for an illustration that the two behave differently. It displays Aol and Acl. The Phase of Aol is the same as the lopop gains (if beta has no frequency dependency), and the frequency where Aol becomes 1/beta is the unity gain frequency of the loop.

Published Apr. 9, 2025 10:51 AM

- Show some example traces in task 2! A) to show that your bias settings produce a good result. B) to illustrate the difficulties at high frequencies, i.e. where the output amplitude becomes so small that the signal drowns more and more in noise. Do not blindly trust the high level results (here the Bode plots) derived automatically from recordings: verify the raw data and how you would manually derive the high level results for a few samples to check that the automatic derivation is not in trouble.

- In task 1 on step response: Plotting both input and output with their respective offsets (i.e. the traces far appart on the y-axis) makes it very hard to make out any detail. Show zoom ins both on the y-axis (to individual traces) and x-axis (to individual transitions)!

Published Apr. 9, 2025 9:02 AM

- Include the mandatory (!) image of your lab setup!!! It's an easy point to get and an unnecessary point to loose!

- Discuss your results and setups with others: easy to spot significant deviations (many times caused by simple mistakes that are easily fixed) that way. Do not work in isolation! Collaboration among all groups is encouraged (while you still have to get and understand your own results)!

- Describe your setup: easy in Cadence by showing your schematics, but even more important in the lab task, i.e. by drawing schematics and indicate the IC pin numbers. So if something seems off with your results, we can check if there is a problem with your setup.

- Read through the entire task text again afer a while to make sure you DID follow all instructions and have not overlooked something. Example: "For both FETs, connect the bulks to the source terminals!"

Published Apr. 7, 2025 8:37 AM

Please find a new edition of the compendium (edition 1.3) for download on the course webpage. It is a minor edition adding the deduction of small signal parameters for the CG stage in the appendix and a few more comments on the single transistor gain stages in the text.

Published Mar. 27, 2025 12:16 PM

Some general FB for lab 1 that might help improve the quality of the report for lab 2...

- Answer all explicit questions and try to answer the implicit ones as well. Example: "Are there any deviations that indicate that there are some effects that the EKV model does not model?"

- Follow all instructions! Example: "Enter the parameters into the EKV matlab function (You’ll find it under ’resources’ on the course page) and plot the result together with your measurement to verify your match." So plot the graphs together, as instructed!

- Give all necessary information to enable replication of your results. Some of you did not mention the value of V_DS for the I_D vs V_GS plots. And vice versa only specified  "strong inversion" for I_D vs V_DS plots instead of also explicitly giving the value used for V_GS.

- Make figures readable! Use big enough labels (In Matlab, for example: set(gca,'fontsize', 14). Label the axes (use 'xlabe...

Published Mar. 21, 2025 11:55 AM

Yesterday night (somewhat surprising to me) the rh7login.ifi.uio.no cluster got retired. Please use nano.ifi.uio.no to run Cadence instead. The lab-guide will be updated accordingly shortly.

Published Mar. 20, 2025 3:54 PM

Note that the waveform generator cannot produce any sine waves with higher frequency than 60MHz! The script text in the lab description tries to go up to 100MHz.

If you download the latest version of MFG_SetSine.m, this is checked when you execute the function.

Published Mar. 20, 2025 3:53 PM

Please re-download the matlab script GainAndPhase.m. It's a new version. The old contained a copy-paste error that caused wrong results when input x and y had different offsets.

Published Mar. 20, 2025 9:09 AM

The automatic frequency sweep ran into trouble: you have to adapt the time base of the oscilloscope to the frequency to get a meaningfull recording to determine the phase. A new function [ok] = MDO_TimebaseScale(h,scale) is provided and inserted into the example loop given in task 2. This should save the issue.

Also note the update of a 'pause' command in the matlab script provided in the lab text!

Published Mar. 10, 2025 9:48 AM

The lab 2 PDF has just been replaced with an updated version. Please download again.

It's but a small change, mentioning the Matlab commands 'semilogx' and 'hold on/off', that can help to plot Bode plots.

Published Mar. 3, 2025 4:52 PM

Use the oportunities to talk to companies situated in Oslo that may be future employers! Check out the information here:

https://www.mn.uio.no/fysikk/studier/aktuelt/arrangementer/2025/industry-day-in-the-elite-study-program.html

Published Feb. 26, 2025 2:09 PM

Be aware that ther is a power outage planned for OJD tomorrow Thu 27-Feb 21:00 to 24:00. The building will be closed and you cannot work in the lab!!!

Published Feb. 17, 2025 4:18 PM

The power supply's 3rd channel can only supply 5V. Since you will most conveniently supply power to the IC (pin 14) from that channel, you cannot use 10V. So let's just use 5V instead.

 

P.S: Background explanation: 1) You need a seperate channel for pin 14 from the one providing the drain voltage, since you want to measure the current going to the drain accurately. 2) Pin 14 is also used for protecting any input against voltages higher than Vdd, so it needs to be the highest voltage on the chip too. So using 10V on the drain and only 5V on pin 14 would not work either...

Published Feb. 11, 2025 1:25 PM

All 2024 videos are now available without an extra step to approve access here:

https://uio.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%22925a0918-e350-49ad-ad68-b28100cae647%22

You can also navigate ther from the semester page clicking on 'Videomappe, lenke til videomappe i Panopto -> 2024_podcasts'

Published Feb. 4, 2025 9:29 AM

some of you discovered that you do not find the drive m: on the lab machines (while you DO find it on the 'Lab Net Workstation' as well as on Linux on ifi Workstation and rh7login.ifi.uio.no as /hom/<username> )

This can be rectified via a very circuitous route:

On the lab Windows computer:

1) Start the program 'Firmaportal' or 'Company Portal'

2) In 'Firmaportal' find 'UiO Legacy Home Drive' and install/run it.

3) Now you DO have access to your home drive, but seemingly not as drive m:. Instead you have to click on 'This PC' and you'll find it as 'Nettverkplasseringer -> Home Drive'

So now you should have a drive that you can access from all machines at UiO, Linux or Windows. If you work from home, you will not have access to it directly from your home machine though. For that you can open Omniss...

Published Feb. 3, 2025 9:39 AM

It appears that students from 2025 do not get automatic access to the podcasts from 2024. For now, as you try to access a 2024 podcast, I get a notification and have to approve access individually for each video and student. So there will be delay. Sorry for that!

In the meantime I am investigating how to rectify that and automatically grant access to all students and all 2024 videos. Let's hope this can be done!

Published Jan. 24, 2025 12:11 PM

Unfortunately the podcast of the 21-Jan lecture is without sound, or more precisely with just noise on the audio track. Please read the compendium on the subject of 'large signal models' if you have not been to the lecture, or have a look at last year's recording of approximately the same content (we got through a bit more stuff then) here: https://uio.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=466b46cc-4c35-4c80-9b0f-b0f900da9b91

Published Jan. 24, 2025 12:00 PM

Due to some sick days and issues with lab software, the labs will start in the first February week, i.e. a week later than originally indicated on the web-page.

Published Jan. 21, 2025 10:26 AM

I have updated the compendium to edition 1.1, now downloadable for logged in students from Leganto.

Notable addition: appendix C with Matlab code for EKV model.