Course Description
EEE 4301 Electronics II is the second course in electronic circuits, and it changes the question being asked. Electronics I asks how does this circuit behave? Electronics II asks what circuit meets this specification? The subject moves from single-transistor stages to multistage amplifiers, from open-loop analysis to feedback, and from analysing a given topology to designing one — with computer-aided design used throughout because the circuits are now too large to carry by hand.
The Statewide Course Numbering System titles this course Electronic Circuits and Systems Design and describes it as covering “multistage amplifier analysis and design including feedback and operational amplifiers, A-to-D and D-to-A converters, waveshaping and waveforming generators including oscillators, voltage regulators, and power circuits. Includes use of computer-aided-design programs.” The FAMU–FSU College of Engineering bulletin uses the statewide title and describes the same content.
Three Florida institutions carry EEE 4301 — Florida A&M University, Florida State University and the University of South Florida — and all three record their own title for it as Electronics II, at 3 credits. The content is consistent, and this guide can be definite about the core.
⚠ At FAMU and FSU there is a separate laboratory. EEE 4301 carries no C suffix. FSU lists EEE 4301L Electronics II Laboratory (1 credit) as a co-requisite, which means the two are taken together but registered separately. See Special Information.
Learning Outcomes
Required Outcomes
- Analyse and design multistage amplifiers, computing overall gain and impedance from cascaded stages and choosing a coupling method appropriate to the requirement.
- Identify the four feedback topologies (series-shunt, shunt-shunt, series-series, shunt-series) in a given circuit and determine the loop gain.
- Quantify the effects of negative feedback on gain, gain sensitivity, bandwidth, distortion and terminal impedances.
- Assess the stability of a feedback amplifier using gain and phase margin from Bode plots, and apply frequency compensation to make an unstable design stable.
- Analyse the internal structure of an operational amplifier — differential input stage, gain stage, output stage, and biasing by current mirrors.
- Design op-amp application circuits and evaluate the effect of real, non-ideal parameters: finite gain and bandwidth, slew rate, input offset voltage and bias current, and CMRR.
- Design active filters and explain the trade-offs among the standard approximations.
- Analyse oscillator circuits, apply the Barkhausen criterion, and design an RC or LC sinusoidal oscillator and a relaxation oscillator.
- Analyse and design waveshaping circuits — comparators, Schmitt triggers, multivibrators and timers.
- Explain the operation and specify the key parameters of analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converters, including resolution, quantisation error and conversion rate.
- Analyse power amplifier classes and voltage regulators, and evaluate efficiency and thermal performance.
- Use SPICE to design and verify a circuit against a written specification, including corner and sensitivity analysis.
Optional Outcomes
- Design switching (class D) amplifiers and switched-mode power supplies.
- Analyse noise in analogue circuits and compute noise figure.
- Design phase-locked loops and frequency synthesisers.
- Analyse instrumentation amplifiers and precision signal-conditioning chains for sensors.
- Apply switched-capacitor techniques.
- Complete an open-ended design project taken from specification to verified simulation or prototype.
Major Topics
Required Topics
- Multistage amplifiers — cascaded stages, direct/RC/transformer coupling, the cascode configuration, differential pairs with active loads, and overall gain and impedance calculation.
- Current mirrors and biasing — simple, Widlar and Wilson mirrors; active loads; current-source biasing in integrated circuits.
- Feedback theory — the general feedback equation, the four topologies, loop gain, and the effect of feedback on gain desensitivity, bandwidth extension, distortion reduction and impedance modification.
- Stability and compensation — Bode and Nyquist criteria, gain and phase margin, dominant-pole and Miller compensation, pole splitting.
- Operational amplifier internals — the two-stage architecture, input offset and bias currents, CMRR and PSRR, slew rate and its origin, and the gain–bandwidth product.
- Op-amp applications — inverting and non-inverting configurations, summers, differencing and instrumentation amplifiers, integrators and differentiators, precision rectifiers and logarithmic amplifiers.
- Active filters — first- and second-order sections, Sallen–Key and multiple-feedback topologies, and Butterworth, Chebyshev and Bessel approximations.
- Oscillators — the Barkhausen criterion, Wien bridge, phase-shift, Colpitts and Hartley oscillators, crystal oscillators, and amplitude stabilisation.
- Waveshaping and timing — comparators, hysteresis and the Schmitt trigger, astable and monostable multivibrators, the 555 timer, and function generation.
- Data converters — DAC architectures (binary-weighted, R-2R ladder), ADC architectures (flash, successive-approximation, dual-slope, sigma-delta), resolution, quantisation noise, sampling and conversion time.
- Power circuits — class A, B, AB and C amplifiers, crossover distortion, efficiency, thermal design and heat sinking; linear and switching voltage regulators.
- Computer-aided design — SPICE for AC, transient, DC sweep, parametric, Monte Carlo and worst-case analysis.
Optional Topics
- Switched-mode power conversion: buck, boost and buck-boost topologies.
- Noise sources, noise figure and low-noise amplifier design.
- Phase-locked loops, voltage-controlled oscillators and frequency synthesis.
- Switched-capacitor circuits and their relationship to sampled-data systems.
- Sensor interface and signal-conditioning design.
- Introduction to analogue integrated-circuit layout.
Resources & Tools
- Microelectronic Circuits (Sedra and Smith) continues from Electronics I and is the most widely adopted text; its feedback and stability chapters are the standard treatment. Microelectronic Circuit Design (Jaeger and Blalock) and Design with Operational Amplifiers and Analog Integrated Circuits (Franco) are common adoptions, the latter particularly where the course leans toward op-amp application design.
- SPICE — LTspice, PSpice or Multisim. This course is where SPICE stops being a checking tool and becomes a design tool: parametric sweeps, Monte Carlo runs and worst-case analysis are expected rather than optional.
- MATLAB for Bode plots, filter approximation and control-style stability analysis; the filter design tools overlap usefully with signal processing coursework.
- Manufacturer design resources — Texas Instruments and Analog Devices both publish extensive application notes, reference designs and filter design tools (TI FilterPro, ADI Analog Filter Wizard) that are genuinely used in industry and are free.
- Devices — the LM741 (historically, and still useful precisely because its limitations are visible), TL08x, LM358, OP07 and modern rail-to-rail parts; LM317 and LM78xx regulators; the NE555 timer.
- Reference works: The Art of Electronics (Horowitz and Hill) is widely recommended as a practical companion and is the book most often still on an engineer’s desk ten years after graduation.
Career Pathways
- Analog design engineer — the most direct destination, and a specialisation in persistent short supply. Analogue design has resisted automation in a way digital design has not, and experienced analogue designers are correspondingly well paid.
- Electronics engineer (SOC 17-2072) and electrical engineer (SOC 17-2071).
- Mixed-signal design engineer — the data-converter material here is the entry point, continued in EEE 4377 Mixed Signal ICs.
- Power electronics engineer — regulators and power stages, with strong Florida demand from utility-scale solar, energy storage and electric vehicle infrastructure.
- Instrumentation engineer and RF/analogue hardware engineer in aerospace, defence and medical devices.
- Applications engineer at a semiconductor manufacturer — a common and under-appreciated route for graduates who enjoy both design and customer-facing work.
- Florida employers include L3Harris (Palm Bay and Melbourne), Lockheed Martin (Orlando), Northrop Grumman (Melbourne and St. Augustine), Raytheon/RTX (Largo), Jabil (St. Petersburg), Siemens Energy (Orlando), Danfoss (Tallahassee), Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson MedTech (Jacksonville and Palm Beach Gardens), Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light, and NSWC Panama City. USF’s Tampa Bay location adds Honeywell (Clearwater) and a substantial medical-device cluster.
Special Information
⚠⚠ The lecture and the laboratory are separate registrations at FAMU and FSU
FSU lists EEE 4301L Electronics II Laboratory (1 credit) as a co-requisite of EEE 4301. They are taken in the same term but are two enrolments carrying two grades, and the pair is worth 4 credits rather than 3. Registering for the lecture alone is a recurring and costly error — because EEE 4301 is a prerequisite for later coursework, missing the laboratory can delay graduation by a term.
USF carries EEE 4301 without a matching EEE 4301L in the statewide record, so the packaging differs there. Check your own catalog rather than assuming the FAMU–FSU arrangement.
⚠ Course-code variation across Florida — and a genuine numbering trap
Second-course electronics is taught under several numbers in Florida, and the numbering here is unusually messy:
- EEE 4301 — FAMU, FSU, USF (with EEE 4301L at FAMU and FSU).
- EEE 4306C / EEE 4306 — University of Florida and University of West Florida (Electronic Circuits 2; UWF splits it with EEE 4306L).
- EEE 4309C — University of Central Florida (Electronics II, 4 credits, integrated laboratory).
- EEE 4304C — Florida International University (Electronics II and Lab, 4 credits) and Florida Polytechnic University (Analog Electronics, 3 credits).
⚠ Four different numbers carry the title “Electronics II” in Florida, and the statewide titles behind them do not agree with one another. The statewide record for EEE 4304C is titled Electronics II; the statewide record for EEE 4301 — the number three institutions actually use for their Electronics II — is titled Electronic Circuits and Systems Design. A transfer evaluator matching on number alone cannot resolve this, and a student cannot assume that a course called Electronics II at one institution corresponds to the one at another. Read the description and the prerequisite chain, not the title, and carry the syllabus.
Prerequisites
At FSU the prerequisites are EEE 3300 and EEE 3300L, with EEE 4301L as a co-requisite. What the prerequisite stands for matters more than the numbers: this course assumes fluent small-signal analysis and the ability to establish a bias point without prompting. Students who passed Electronics I by pattern-matching rather than by understanding the bias-then-linearise method meet the consequence here, in week two, when feedback analysis requires holding both the DC and AC pictures simultaneously.
⚠ A skill the prerequisites do not name. Feedback stability is taught with Bode plots, gain margin and phase margin — the vocabulary of control systems. Many students meet EEE 4301 before taking a controls course, and the frequency-domain stability material is where they struggle, not the electronics. Reviewing Bode plot construction and the meaning of phase margin before the term begins is the single most effective preparation.
Position in the curriculum
EEE 4301 sits in the junior or senior year and is the gateway to the analogue and integrated-circuit electives. At FSU it is the prerequisite for EEE 4376C Introduction to Analog IC Design, and through that route to EEE 4377 Mixed Signal ICs. It is also the practical foundation for senior design projects involving any analogue signal path, which is most of them.
Difficulty and time commitment
Electronics II is generally regarded as harder than Electronics I, for a reason worth stating: design problems have no unique answer. A student who is comfortable checking work against a solution key loses that support here. Feedback analysis in particular requires correctly identifying a topology before any equation applies, and misidentifying it produces a confidently wrong answer. Plan on ten to twelve hours a week outside class, with a substantial block reserved for simulation, and expect design assignments to expand to fill whatever time is available.
Articulation and transfer
SCNS records EEE 4301 as guaranteed to transfer to an institution offering the same course, and three institutions carry it. All three carry it at 3 credits. The course is upper-division and carries no general-education or Gordon Rule designation.
FE exam relevance
The NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering (Electrical and Computer) exam covers operational amplifiers, amplifier configurations, filters and power electronics within its Electronics and Power topic areas. This course covers the op-amp and filter material directly and is the better preparation of the two electronics courses for that portion of the exam. The FE reference handbook provides op-amp and filter formulae but not the judgement about which applies — that judgement is what this course develops.
AI Integration
Design courses are where AI assistance is simultaneously most tempting and least trustworthy, and Electronics II is a clear case.
Where it helps. Explaining why a particular feedback topology modifies input impedance the way it does; suggesting an architecture to consider for a stated specification; generating and debugging SPICE netlists and parametric sweep scripts; interpreting convergence failures, which are opaque and frustrating for beginners; and locating the relevant manufacturer application note, of which there are thousands and which are genuinely good.
⚠ Where it fails, and why the failure coincides with the course’s own subject. The characteristic error of an AI tool asked a feedback question is to report a closed-loop gain without checking stability — returning A/(1+Aβ) for a design whose phase margin is negative and which will oscillate the moment it is built. That is exactly the error this course exists to eliminate. The discipline being taught is that a gain specification is not met until the loop is shown to be stable, and a model that pattern-matches on “non-inverting amplifier, find the gain” has skipped the step that makes the answer an engineering result rather than an arithmetic one.
A second, subtler failure: models will happily produce an op-amp circuit that works perfectly with an ideal op-amp and fails with a real one, because the design ignores slew rate, gain–bandwidth product or input bias current. The whole point of this course is that op-amps are not ideal. A generated design that would have been correct in a first-year circuits course is, here, precisely wrong.
The engineer’s responsibility. An analogue design is a claim that a circuit will meet a specification over temperature, over supply variation and across the manufacturing spread of its components. SPICE with a Monte Carlo run tests that claim; a plausible schematic does not. If you cannot state the phase margin and the worst-case corner, you do not yet have a design — regardless of what produced the schematic.
Academic integrity. FAMU, FSU and USF each maintain academic integrity policies covering AI-generated work, and practice varies by instructor and by assignment type. Hand analysis and design justification are normally expected to be your own even where simulation and scripting assistance is permitted. Ask before you rely on a tool, and disclose its use where the syllabus requires it.