The Right Tools to Complement Classroom Learning

6th November 2009
I remember taking Microelectronics subject in my second year in university - and having to struggle to understand the basics. Despite getting good results, I found it hard to intuitively grasp the concepts of transistors, diodes, amplifiers, and of course, the ever difficult Bode plots!

Now after working in the Electronics industry for 10 years, I find them to be much easier to understand - and started to wonder what I could have done 10 years ago to have the same understanding. I realize that at work, the reason I can understand these concepts better was mainly because I had the right equipment. Hands-on experience makes a difference.

Not that we didn't have the lab equipment in my university years. But they were limited, and in some cases, not the right tools. (They were also very old and appeared unattractive to me, which made me wonder how interesting can an engineer's life be, but that's a different story!)

For example, to learn about amplifier's characteristics in frequency domain, we did not have a Network Analyzer or a Spectrum Analyzer. We had to use a Function Generator with an Oscilloscope, which by the way had a black and green CRT display. We had to generate sine waves into the amplifier, then measure the output voltage & phase manually using the oscilloscope cursors - and then vary the frequency and repeat. We then plotted the output vs input, phase, converted to log, and calculated the 3-dB attenuation. Not only the whole process took a long time, it also seemed to be quite disconnected from the theory part that we learned in the classroom - which was mostly in frequency domain. It would be worse if we tried to measure distortions, harmonics, stability, oscillations, etc. - concepts which I found hard to understand intuitively.

All this changed when I started working as an Electrical Engineer, and working on circuits that used to give me the worries. Here I was again, with the same amplifiers and transistors, trying to measure their gain, phase, stability, bandwidth, distortion, harmonics. But all of sudden I found that they were not too bad - if I had the right tools. I was fortunate that I had access to Network Analyzers where I can view the gain and phase, Signal Generators and Spectrum Analyzers to look at the distortions and harmonics. Suddenly all the formulas in school started to make sense, the pieces of the concept puzzle started to fall in place, and I started to appreciate what my lecturers used to teach me (maybe I wasn't listening enough!)

With the advancement of test & measurement tools, I feel that students should be given the exposure of the tools used in the industry. They should know how engineers perform their work, and that it is not as tedious as I previously went through. And they should know that life as an engineer is interesting after all...

Leave a question