Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh has recently set-up a "Texas Instruments (TI) Innovation Lab" and decided to conduct a two-day faculty development program on Analog System Design in collaboration with TI India University Program during Aug 21-22. The program was organized under MISRC (Microelectronics and Information Systems Research Centre), CURIN (Chitkara University Research & Innovation Network) and was opened to faculty and research scholars of all engineering institutions. 25 faculties and research scholars from 5 different engineering institutions signed up for the program. Trainer was an expert from TI India university program team and participants learnt to build analog systems like never before using very innovative platform from Texas Instruments - ASLK Pro Kits!

      TI Lab at Chitkara University,                        Participants Posing for a Group
             Himachal Pradesh                                                        Photo

Apart from the hands-on experience of analog design, the other primary objective of the program was to teach participants the importance of analog systems in front-end & back-end electronics and how analog systems course can be taught in a very interactive way using basic analog building blocks.

Participants learnt to build interesting analog systems like - Automatic Gain Control System, Voltage Controlled Oscillators, Universal Active Filters, Phase Locked Loop etc, using two fundamental building blocks Op-Amp (TL082) and Analog Multiplier (MPY634KP). In addition to the hardware implementation on ASLK Pro, all the systems were simulated using SPICE based TINA software.

During Day 1 participants began with design of negative feedback systems and measured the three important characteristics of Op-Amp namely Gain Bandwidth Product, Slew Rate, and Saturation Limit. Then there was a design of Automatic Gain Control System (AGC) using an op-amp and a multiplier. AGC is designed to give constant output voltage for varying input voltage and find its applications in front-end electronics. Other important exercise carried out on Day 1 was design of universal active filter that performs low pass, high pass, band pass and band stop filtering action.

Day 2 was more focused on positive feedback and oscillators design. The day began with designing of a Schmitt trigger, plotting the hysteresis curve and understanding its applications in ON-OFF control. Then using the Schmitt trigger, an astable mutivibrator or free running oscillator is designed. Other oscillators designed were Function Generator that generates square and triangular wave outputs, Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) where frequency for generated square and triangular wave is controlled by dc control voltage and last exercise was designing of a Phase Locked Loop (PLL) and measuring the lock range & capture range. PLL and VCO find applications in communication systems like MODEM.

    Participants doing Hands-on on                       Certificate Distribution
                     ASLK Pro Kit

All participants were awarded certificates during the valedictory program that was attended by Brig (Dr.) R.S. Grewal - Vice Chancellor Chitkara University Himachal Pradesh and Dr. Rajnish Sharma - Dean Academics, Chitkara University Himachal Pradesh. Dr. Grewal addressed the participants and motivated them to keep innovating and keep doing more hands-on. Participants gave very good feedback about the program. Couple of participants volunteered to share their feedback during valedictory and they were very happy with the content of the workshop and the hands-on experience.

We thank TI India University Program for organizing such wonderful workshop for the faculty. Thanks are also due to Mr. Narendra Babu,trainer for the workshop from Starcom Technology Pvt. Ltd. (university program partner for TI India) for sharing his expertise and experience.

By Sagar Juneja - Research Associate, Chitkara University