ECE 442: Electronic Circuits (Fall 2009)                                                                   

Instructor: Professor N. R. Shanbhag                                          TAs: Pavle Milosevic and Minwei Lu                    

Homework 1 (Due: 2 September (Wed), 5pm)

1. For what value of R would two circuits below be equivalent? Note: This equivalence is also called the
source absorption theorem.

 
g m vo vo R ? vo

 
2. Solve the following:

a) Determine the Thevenin voltage VT, and Thevenin resistance RT looking into the terminals A and
B, as indicated by the arrow.
5.1k

50 k  3k
1k
A

610 3k

10k
B
b) For the circuit below, determine the resistance seen between the terminals A and B, as indicated
by the arrow.


vx 5 3vx 2

A

B
c) For the circuit below, first determine the Thevenin equivalent of the circuit to the left of the

                        Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign  Page 1 
                                                           ECE 442: Electronic Circuits (Fall 2009)                                                                   
Instructor: Professor N. R. Shanbhag                                          TAs: Pavle Milosevic and Minwei Lu                    

dotted line, and then use it to obtain the Thevenin equivalent circuit between terminals A and B,
as indicated by the arrow.

2 v x
4 8
A
2

15V
 5
6v x
B

d) In the circuit above, if terminals A and B were to be shorted with a wire, what current Isc would
flow through it? Do not use the answer to part c) to solve this problem. Does the ratio of Voc
(from part c) to Isc look familiar? What is it? Draw the Norton equivalent circuit for the circuit
above.

3. The iv relation of an electronic device is well modeled as:

v
i  0.01
3
v
1  
5
a) Develop a PWL model of the device in the region 0V-3V, using only one PWL segment. The
value and slope of the segment should match that of the given i-v equation at 1.5V. Evaluate the
relative error of this model for applied voltages of 0V, 1V, 2V and 3V.
b) Develop a PWL model of the device in the region 3V-9V, using 3 PWL segments. The values and
slopes of the segments should match those of the given iv equation at 3V, 6V and 9V. Evaluate
the relative error of this model for applied voltages of 4V, 5V, 7V and 8V.
iPWL  i
The relative error in percents is defined as  | | 100 [%]
i
Hint: You may find it easier to develop the models if you first plot the i-v equation given above.

4. Given the function y = 2x3

a) Obtain a linearized expression that describes y around the point (x = 3, y = 54).

b) Using Taylor series expansion, to determine the range over which the expression part (a) is
accurate, i.e., the second order term is much smaller than the first order term.

                        Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign  Page 2