EC ENGR 115A
Analog Electronic Circuits I
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour; outside study, seven hours. Enforced requisite: course 110. Review of physics and operation of diodes and bipolar and MOS transistors. Equivalent circuits and models of semiconductor devices. Analysis and design of single-stage amplifiers. DC biasing circuits. Small-signal analysis. Operational amplifier systems. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - I think Professor Abidi is a good lecturer, and he might even have the potential to become a beloved professor like Razavi or Kao in the ECE department, but he has simply chosen not to and instead to be a jerk to everyone. Let’s start with the pros. In my honest opinion, Abidi teaches about BJT really well. He spends roughly half of the 10 weeks on BJTs and goes into a lot of details about amplifier topologies. His lecture is not boring, provided that you can follow his train of thought. Lastly, the HW is graded pretty nicely this quarter (which I assume is because the TA grades it). Then the cons. First of all, Abidi seems to be against modern technology, which is ironic for an ECE professor and the inventor of RF CMOS. He is really old school. He writes notes on the background with chalk and never posts lectures on Bruinlearn. So you have no choice but to come to his lecture every day, or you will be very lost. We can’t submit HW on Bruinlearn; instead, we have to submit physical copies of the HW in class. Additionally, he does not teach about MOSFETs very well. In fact, he roughly only spends 3 weeks on MOSFETS, and one of those weeks is just him talking about material from 115B or 115C. He doesn’t go over the amplifier topologies, input resistance and output resistance derivations, and cascoding as he does for the BJT. I think he just assumes that we should know all about it already by applying what we know from BJT, which is not true. His HWs (especially the ones about MOSFETs) also do not prepare you well for the exams. However, the practice exam he posts does help a lot, and you should know every topic on there by heart. The grading of the exams is what most people complain about. For reference, the distribution of the midterm is as follows: 71/90 max, 5/90 min, and a whopping 26/90 median. (Final exam grade will not be posted, apparently, so we will never know how that goes.) The content of the two exams themselves was not the worst, to be honest. Most of the topics can be found in the lecture notes, HW, or the practice problems, and only one or two questions are completely out of nowhere. But holy shit, his grading is insane. He gives no partial credit, and he punishes you for a lot of small mistakes. For a circuit class, this kind of grading is guaranteed to screw you. Lastly, I want to talk about Abidi as a person. He is probably the most arrogant person I have seen in my entire life. I think he considers himself the only source of authority and hates it when people challenge him. He even seems to dislike/disrespect the TA, who is honestly the only reason why not everyone is failing the class, as we are all asking him for help due to Abidi’s utter arrogance.
Fall 2025 - I think Professor Abidi is a good lecturer, and he might even have the potential to become a beloved professor like Razavi or Kao in the ECE department, but he has simply chosen not to and instead to be a jerk to everyone. Let’s start with the pros. In my honest opinion, Abidi teaches about BJT really well. He spends roughly half of the 10 weeks on BJTs and goes into a lot of details about amplifier topologies. His lecture is not boring, provided that you can follow his train of thought. Lastly, the HW is graded pretty nicely this quarter (which I assume is because the TA grades it). Then the cons. First of all, Abidi seems to be against modern technology, which is ironic for an ECE professor and the inventor of RF CMOS. He is really old school. He writes notes on the background with chalk and never posts lectures on Bruinlearn. So you have no choice but to come to his lecture every day, or you will be very lost. We can’t submit HW on Bruinlearn; instead, we have to submit physical copies of the HW in class. Additionally, he does not teach about MOSFETs very well. In fact, he roughly only spends 3 weeks on MOSFETS, and one of those weeks is just him talking about material from 115B or 115C. He doesn’t go over the amplifier topologies, input resistance and output resistance derivations, and cascoding as he does for the BJT. I think he just assumes that we should know all about it already by applying what we know from BJT, which is not true. His HWs (especially the ones about MOSFETs) also do not prepare you well for the exams. However, the practice exam he posts does help a lot, and you should know every topic on there by heart. The grading of the exams is what most people complain about. For reference, the distribution of the midterm is as follows: 71/90 max, 5/90 min, and a whopping 26/90 median. (Final exam grade will not be posted, apparently, so we will never know how that goes.) The content of the two exams themselves was not the worst, to be honest. Most of the topics can be found in the lecture notes, HW, or the practice problems, and only one or two questions are completely out of nowhere. But holy shit, his grading is insane. He gives no partial credit, and he punishes you for a lot of small mistakes. For a circuit class, this kind of grading is guaranteed to screw you. Lastly, I want to talk about Abidi as a person. He is probably the most arrogant person I have seen in my entire life. I think he considers himself the only source of authority and hates it when people challenge him. He even seems to dislike/disrespect the TA, who is honestly the only reason why not everyone is failing the class, as we are all asking him for help due to Abidi’s utter arrogance.
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Most Helpful Review
I really do not recommend Chang for any EE class. His jokes aren't as funny as other students make them out to be; in fact, I remember one of his jokes talked about how Mechanical Engineers aren't as hard workers as Electrical Engineers. Even though I'm an EE major, I did not really appreciate that joke because I have several friends majoring in Mechanical Engineering. He does not do much of the teaching in the class; instead, we had to depend on the TA. So, basically, if your TA is good, you will have an easy time in Chang's class. However, if your TA is often late to discussion and confuses students easily, like my TA was, this class will be MUCH harder than what it should be. All in all, avoid Professor Chang if you can.
I really do not recommend Chang for any EE class. His jokes aren't as funny as other students make them out to be; in fact, I remember one of his jokes talked about how Mechanical Engineers aren't as hard workers as Electrical Engineers. Even though I'm an EE major, I did not really appreciate that joke because I have several friends majoring in Mechanical Engineering. He does not do much of the teaching in the class; instead, we had to depend on the TA. So, basically, if your TA is good, you will have an easy time in Chang's class. However, if your TA is often late to discussion and confuses students easily, like my TA was, this class will be MUCH harder than what it should be. All in all, avoid Professor Chang if you can.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - EE 1115A is one of the 8 choose 6 core classes. And typically people take the easier ones and are left with deciding between 115a, CS33, and ee133a. Between those three 115 is the easier one. Darabi is a decent lecturer and because 115 is more formula based than 110 and 10 it makes it easier to not only follow but also understand. The homework’s are really long and take forever. But doing them is the only study material you’ll have since there are no practice exams. The midterm was super tough as was the final. Overall would take again with darabi. The ta’s were fantastic.
Fall 2019 - EE 1115A is one of the 8 choose 6 core classes. And typically people take the easier ones and are left with deciding between 115a, CS33, and ee133a. Between those three 115 is the easier one. Darabi is a decent lecturer and because 115 is more formula based than 110 and 10 it makes it easier to not only follow but also understand. The homework’s are really long and take forever. But doing them is the only study material you’ll have since there are no practice exams. The midterm was super tough as was the final. Overall would take again with darabi. The ta’s were fantastic.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Note: Taken online (Covid). As a professor Moloudi is one of the better ones. Both in-person and online lectures are relatively engaging. He's very thorough and generally is pretty clear with explanations. Moloudi is very blunt, but not rude like Abidi can be. I had him in-person for 110H in winter, he does not post slides so it's very important to go to the lecture (which sucks since normally they are at 8AM). Exams are tough but fair.
Spring 2020 - Note: Taken online (Covid). As a professor Moloudi is one of the better ones. Both in-person and online lectures are relatively engaging. He's very thorough and generally is pretty clear with explanations. Moloudi is very blunt, but not rude like Abidi can be. I had him in-person for 110H in winter, he does not post slides so it's very important to go to the lecture (which sucks since normally they are at 8AM). Exams are tough but fair.
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