TJHSST Microelectronics Research Lab

Welcome! We're so glad that you're here today. Whether you're a student, parent, teacher, or member of our community, we hope that you'll consider joining us or supporting our work!

This site is still currently under construction. If you're interested in contributing to the site, please contact us. Our source code can be found on Github.

About

Welcome to the TJHSST Microelectronics Research Lab, affectionately known as "the Lab"! Here, some of TJ's finest and brighest minds come together to study anything and everything in the field of electronics. No matter what you're interested in, there's always something for you in the Lab — from FPGAs to 5G research, all the way to playing with sand and listening to the Beatles. With our generous funding, we're able to have state of the art equipment that surpasses university labs and rivals those of the industry.

We're currently led by Mrs. Pamela Ahn, and we're located in Curie Commons on the second floor, across the hall from the Automation and Robotics Lab (Robo). We're also part of TJ's new Joint Engineering Lab, which consolidates all of the tech labs for students to have state of the art equipment in not just one lab, but five!

Electronics Club

We're proud to have our own electronics club, which aims to educate students who are interested in electronics as early as freshman year.

Compared to the freshman experience in Design and Tech, Electronics Club takes a much deeper look at the network of signals that powers everything around us, giving you a foundational perspective critical to understanding the modern digitized age. Here you can learn everything that’s covered in the electronics electives (Analog, Digital, Microprocessors, and Audio Electronics) and much more! Culminating in a final individual project, members get to learn how to process electronic signals to play audio on a speaker, create their own games, and many more exciting uses of electronics.

Meetings will be conducted by seniors in the Lab, who will organize lectures and help members in both building simulations of circuits and learning the factors involved in building real ones. You’ll also be able to talk with members of the Lab about anything you might be curious about regarding TJ’s electronics offerings. Members of all experience levels are welcome, from freshmen who haven’t even heard of the robot project to students in the middle of taking the electronics electives! Club meetings take place on Fridays A and B block.

Course Offerings

In the Lab, we offer four semester courses and yearlong research. You can access detailed course descriptions in the TJ Course Catalog.

Accelerated Analog Electronics (9826T5)

Informally known as Analog.

How do signals work? It's important that we know what signals are and how they function, because they're everywhere, from the music we listen to all the way to how our brains function! Known as the "warm and fuzzy" part of electronics, we first dive into electronics through a basic understanding of circuits built solely with discrete components. In this class, we partner up and work on an analog audio chain through the whole class to better understand aspects of teamwork, signal transmission, and electronics more broadly.

Accelerated Digital Electronics (9826T6)

Informally known as Digital.

If Analog were the whimsical and slightly unpredicable course, Digital would be the logical one. Literally. In Digital we explore how circuits can to perform operations such as counting and logical comparisons, forming the building blocks of computers today. We design and build a game throughout the course to aid in our understanding.

Advanced Microprocessor Systems (9826T1)

Informally known as Microprocessors. Prerequisites: Accelerated Analog Electronics or Accelerated Digital Electronics.

Building off of our knowledge of Digital, in Microprocessors, we look at how a single microprocessor chip can combine all of the digital circuits we previously learned about into one package to perform operations. We also look at programming at the low level with Assembly. Throughout the course, we complete a final project that ties what we've learned during the semester.

Audio Electronics (9826T0)

Informally known as Audio. Prerequisites: Accelerated Analog Electronics or Accelerated Digital Electronics or Advanced Microprocessor Systems.

Many of us love listening to music, but we don't often think of the steps that have been taking in producing the wonderful music we enjoy. What if we want to change how the music sounds, or Autotune it so it's not as pitchy? In Audio, we dive deep into the world of audio electronics. We discover the world of Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and we research both the theory behind it and apply it through a final project of our choice.

Microprocessors Research (9826T2)

Informally known as Senior Research. Prerequisites: Accelerated Analog Electronics and Accelerated Digital Electronics.

Every TJ senior is required to do research in a specific lab their senior year, and we're proud to offer it alongside our electives! The sky is truly the limit in what you want to pursue in the Lab — we feature our senior projects below, so feel free to check them out for inspiration.

Class of 2021

Class of 2022

Coming soon! We're currently taking our first steps to deciding our projects — stay with us to find out what we'll be up to!

Contact

For more information on the Lab, please join our Discord or email us! You can also view repositories for Senior Research projects and club lectures on our Github.