Understanding Microelectronics

A Top-Down Approach

Franco Maloberti

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781119978343
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Elektrotechnik & Telekommunikation

The microelectronics evolution has given rise to many modern benefits but has also changed design methods and attitudes to learning. Technology advancements shifted focus from simple circuits to complex systems with major attention to high-level descriptions. The design methods moved from a bottom-up to a top-down approach.

For today's students, the most beneficial approach to learning is this top-down method that demonstrates a global view of electronics before going into specifics. Franco Maloberti uses this approach to explain the fundamentals of electronics, such as processing functions, signals and their properties. Here he presents a helpful balance of theory, examples, and verification of results, while keeping mathematics and signal processing theory to a minimum.

Key features:

• Presents a new learning approach that will greatly improve students' ability to retain key concepts in electronics studies
• Match the evolution of Computer Aided Design (CAD) which focuses increasingly on high-level design
• Covers sub-functions as well as basic circuits and basic components
• Provides real-world examples to inspire a thorough understanding of global issues, before going into the detail of components and devices
• Discusses power conversion and management; an important area that is missing in other books on the subject
• End-of-chapter problems and self-training sections support the reader in exploring systems and understanding them at increasing levels of complexity

Inside this book you will find a complete explanation of electronics that can be applied across a range of disciplines including electrical engineering and physics. This comprehensive introduction will be of benefit to students studying electronics, as well as their lecturers and professors. Postgraduate engineers, those in vocational training, and design and application engineers will also find this book useful.

CHAPTER 1

OVERVIEW, GOALS AND STRATEGY

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

—Plato

1.1 GOOD MORNING

I don’t know whether now, the first time you open this book, it is morning, afternoon, or, perhaps, night, but for sure it is the morning of a long day, or, better, it is the beginning of an adventure. After a preparation phase, this journey will enable you to meet electronic systems, will let you get inside intriguing architectures, will help you in identifying basic functions, will show you how electronic blocks realize them, and will give you the capability to examine these blocks made by transistors and interconnections. You will also learn how to design and not just understand circuits, by using transistors and other elements to obtain electronic processing. Further, you will know about memories used for storing data and you will become familiar with other auxiliary functions such as the generation of supply voltages or the control of accurate clock signals. This adventure trip will be challenging, with difficult passages and, probably, here and there with too much math, but at the end you will, hopefully, gain a solid knowledge of electronics, the science that more than many others has favored progress in recent decades and is pervading every moment of our lives.

If you are young, but even if you are not as old as I am … (well, don’t exaggerate: I have white hair, I know, but I am still young, I suppose, since I look in good shape). If you are young, I was saying, you have surely encountered electronics since the first minute of your life. Electronic apparatus was probably used when you were born, and even before that, when somebody was monitoring your prenatal health. Then you enjoyed electronics-based toys, and you have used various electronic devices and gadgets, growing in complexity with you, many times a day, either for pleasure or for professional needs, ever since. Certainly you use electronics massively and continuously, unless you are shipwrecked on a faraway island with just a mechanical clock and no satellite phone, with the batteries of your MP3, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), tablet or portable computer gone, and no sophisticated radio or GPS.

Well, I suppose you have already realized that electronics pervades the life of everybody and aids every daily action, and also, I suppose, you assume that using electronics is not difficult; electronic devices are (and must be) user friendly. Indeed, instruction manuals are often useless, because everybody desires to use a new device just by employing common sense. People don’t have the patience to read a few pages of a small multilingual booklet. Moreover, many presume that it is useless to know what is inside the device, what the theoretical basis governing the electronic system is and what its basic blocks and primary components are, and, below this, to know about the materials and their physical and chemical properties. In some sense, an ideal electronic apparatus is, from the customer’s point of view, a black box: just a nicely designed object, intuitive to operate and capable of satisfying demanding requests and expectations.

What do you expect from a microelectronic system?

I suppose, like everybody else, you expect to be able to use the system by intuition without reading boring instruction manuals, to have an answer to your request for high performance, and to pay as little as possible.

Indeed, it is true that modern electronic equipment is user friendly, but, obviously, to design it, to understand its functions in detail, and, also, to comprehend the key features, it is necessary to have special expertise. This is the asset of many professionals in the electronics business: people who acquire knowledge up to a level that gives the degree of confidence they need so as to perform at their best in designing, marketing, promoting, or selling electronic circuits and systems.

Therefore, we (you and I) are facing the difficult task of transforming a user of friendly electronics or microelectronics into an expert in microelectronics. For that, it is necessary that you, future electronics professional, open (and this is the first obstacle), read, and understand a bulky book (albeit with figures) printed on old-fashioned paper. This is not easy, because anyone who uses a computer and the Web is accustomed to doing and knowing without feeling the need to read even a small instruction manual.

I have to admit that the method followed for decades in teaching scientific and technical topics is perceived as out of date by most modern people. I am sure you think that starting from fundamentals to construct the building of knowledge, step by step, is really boring! There are quicker methods, I assume you think. Indeed, following the traditional approach requires one to be very patient and not to expect immediate results as with modern electronic aids. Nevertheless, it is essential to be aware that fundamentals are important (or, better, vital). It is well known that a solid foundation is better than sand: a castle built on sand, without foundations, will certainly collapse. That is what old people usually say, but, again, studying basic concepts is tedious. So what can I do to persuade you that fundamentals are necessary? Perhaps by narrating a tale that I spontaneously invented many years ago during a debate at a panel discussion. That tale is given here.

The man who owned 100 cars

A rich man was so rich that he owned 100 cars, one for every moment of his life, with three drivers per car available 24 hours a day. The drivers’job included unrolling a red carpet on the small paths from one car to the next and having every car available every moment of the day and night. One marvelous day the wife of the rich man gave birth to a beautiful child. This brought great happiness to the man, his wife and the 300 drivers of the 100 cars.

Two years later, as the second birthday of the lovely boy approached, on the birthday present and the rich man already had thought of a small car with golden wheels. He asked his wife: “What do you think?” The lady promptly replied: “I would prefer a pair of shoes.” “What?” cried the man, “I have 100 cars and miles of red carpet! My son does not need to walk! Shoes are for the poor people that have to walk.”

After the panel, when the discussion was over, a colleague of mine approached me, saying: “Excellent! You exactly got the point. Fundamentals are essential. You are right; having cars does not justify bare feet.” He fully agreed with me, and certainly liked the way I described the need to know fundamentals even if powerful tools are available for helping designers.

The risk is that computer tools, embedding overwhelming design methods, favor the habit of trying and retrying until acceptable results are obtained. Therefore computer support often gives rise to results that appear very good without requiring the hard intellectual work that is supported and favored by a solid technical background.

Indeed, fundamentals are essential, but knowing everything is negative: it is necessary to settle at the right level. Saturating the mind by a flood of notions creates too many mindsets and, consequently, limits creativity. A discussion on creativity would take pages and pages, and I don’t think this is the proper place to have it. However, remember that a bit of creativity (but not too much) is the basis for any successful technical job. Blending basic knowledge, creativity, quality, and execution must be the goal. This makes the difference between a respected (and well paid) electronic engineer and a pusher of keys.

Remember that anybody is able to push buttons, so becoming a key pusher does not add much to professional capability. Even a monkey can do that!

So, the key point is: where is the added value? What makes the difference? Obviously, for a successful future, it is necessary to acquire more than the capability of pushing buttons.

For this, computer-aided tools should not be used for avoiding thought but for improving the effectiveness of the learning process. This is very important, and, actually, the goal of this book is to provide, with a mix of fundamentals and computer-aided support, the basis of that added value that distinguishes an expert.

Now, I think that is enough introduction, and after this long discussion (it may be a bit boring) I suppose that you, my dear reader, are anxious to see the next step. So, … let’s organize the day. And, again, good morning.

1.2 PLANNING THE TRIP

When planning an adventurous trip, for safety and to ensure your future enjoyment it is recommended that you check a number of points. First, you have to define the trip in terms of a wish list; for example, you need to define whether you want to camp out at night, bunk in a rustic hut or stay in a five-star hotel. Also, you need to state whether you plan to stop in a small cafe and chat with local people or whether you desire to visit a museum. For this special adventurous trip, I suppose your wish list includes:

the desire to become an expert on electronic systems, to know their basic properties, to be able to assess them and to recognize their limits;

the wish to know more about the signals used and processed in electronic systems so as to understand whether a parameter value is good or bad and to learn how to generate test signals and use t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Overview, Goals and Strategy
• Chapter 2: Signals
• Chapter 3: Electronic Systems
• Chapter 4: Signal Processing
• Chapter 5: Circuits for Systems
• Chapter 6: Analog Processing Blocks
• Chapter 7: Data Converters
• Chapter 8: Digital Processing Circuits
• Chapter 9: Basic Electronic Devices
• Chapter 10: Analog Building Cells
• Chapter 11: Digital Building Cells
• Chapter 12: Feedback
• Chapter 13: Power Conversion and Power Management
• Chapter 14: Signal Generation and Signal Measurement
• Index