IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 47,NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2004 93 Research-Oriented Junior/Senior Design Projects: An Analog Circuit Design Example Wael M. Halalu, Student Member, IEEE, and Ahmed S. Elwakil, Member, IEEE Abstract—Briefly, the advantages of offering research-oriented design projects for undergraduate students of particular interest and talent are discussed. A successful research-based analog circuit design project is described as an example. The project is concerned with developing bipolar transistor circuit cells capable of realizing arbitrary nonlinear current transfer characteristics in piecewise- linear form using the Static Translinear Principle (STLP). The ob- tained results are shown. Index Terms—Analog electronics, nonlinear circuits, piecewise- linear functions, translinear circuits. I. INTRODUCTION J UNIOR/SENIOR design projects are key elements in most Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering under- graduate programs, and indeed in many other disciplines. Stu- dents usually engage in these two course-equivalent subjects near the end of their four-year (or five-year) study, most likely during the final four semesters. The importance of these design projects is highly emphasized by many educational establish- ments as well as by industrial representatives, who integrate questions concerning these projects in their interviews of fresh graduates seeking employment. One can summarize the main objectives of junior/senior design projects in a number of points, as follows. 1) One objective is to enable students to integrate theoretical and practical skills gained throughout their lecture and laboratory coverage of different courses. However, rarely can a project be completed without the involved students having to read extensively and search for extra informa- tion not available in their textbooks, lecture notes, or labo- ratory manuals. This important objective opens students’ eyes to the realization that the degree by which they have digested the fundamental ideas of their core courses will dictate their ability to access more knowledge. 2) The spirit of teamwork and the associated concepts of ef- fective task partitioning, time and budget allocation, load distribution, scheduling, etc., are important outcomes of design projects that deserve emphasized attention when it comes to evaluating and grading. 3) Successful documentation and presentation of the work performed throughout the project is an equally impor- Manuscript received June 9, 2002; revised January 6, 2003. W. M. Halalu is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and also with Abu Dhabi Etisalat, United Arab Emirates. A. S. Elwakil is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TE.2003.818273 tant objective. In particular, students are expected to learn how to professionally prepare a document that will enable others to understand, confirm, and possibly extend their findings. In addition to these generic objectives, the nature of the de- sign project itself and the quality of the involved students might force supervisors to reshuffle priorities. In this context, the sit- uation is considered where a student or group of students show particular interest and evident talent in a specific subject. In ad- dition, the students have sincere desires to continue their post- graduate studies immediately after graduation. Although such a combination is not so common, it should be carefully consid- ered when it does appear, particularly since such students are ex- cellent candidates for joining respective research groups within their institutions or elsewhere. The following sections describe a research-based junior de- sign project that has been tailored to introduce to a particularly talented student in electronic circuit design two advanced topics in this area. In this project, the merits of teamwork have been sacrificed for the sake of giving the student a very clear idea of the meaning of scientific research and significance of pub- lished material. Such a clear view is expected to aid the student in a future research-oriented career. However, the authors be- lieve that the student will be sufficiently exposed to teamwork values during his or her senior design project, a condition gen- erally recommended in a similar case. II. BACKGROUND Analog electronic circuit design is offered as an elective course in many universities. The emphasis in this course is usually on integrated circuit design techniques, both in bipolar and in metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technologies, cov- ering topics such as amplifier design, tuned filters, oscillators, analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to-analog (D/A) converters [1]–[4]. However, some instructors find it adequate to introduce advanced topics to the students, such as switched-capacitor and translinear circuits, particularly when they detect an encouraging response. The student who carried the junior design project described here was among nine other students attending this elective course. The Static Translinear Principle (STLP) was explained to the students in a series of lectures with several of its applications both in bipolar and MOS circuits. One cannot find this important principle in any undergraduate textbook and, therefore, has to revert to a specialized book such as [5] and some introductory research articles [6], [7]. Although the translinear principle has been around for quite a long time, only recently has it received more attention and renewed interest. The reason lies in the technological advances 0018-9359/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE