MIT runs prototype online course in basic electronics

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is running a free online course in electronics from 5 March 2012.

The 6.002x Circuits and Electronics course is designed as a first course in an undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum, introducing circuit theory and analogue design.

It is a core subject for electrical engineering and computer science students, and has a prerequisite of high-school level mathematics (basic calculus, linear algebra, differential equations) and physics (electricity and magnetism). It is expected to take students 10 hours per week, including design and lab exercises.

MIT will award participants who successfully complete the course an electronic certificate of accomplishment. As 6.002x is a pilot digital course, attendees need not be tested or have their identities certified to receive the electronic certificate.

The course introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include:

  • resistive elements and networks
  • independent and dependent sources
  • switches and MOS transistors
  • digital abstraction
  • amplifiers
  • energy storage elements
  • dynamics of first- and second-order networks
  • design in the time and frequency domains
  • analogue and digital circuits and applications

The course uses the textbook Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits, by Anant Agarwal and Jeffrey H. Lang. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Elsevier, July 2005.

For more information on the 6.002x Circuits and Electronics course by MITx, visit the website.