Fall 2026

Electronic Circuits II

ECE 342 covers advanced modeling and design of semiconductor devices, analog amplifiers, and CMOS digital circuits.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 Zheng Liu

Summary

1 / 6

Historical reviews of Christopher Demarco, Giri Venkataramanan: Reviews describe high effort and difficult exams. Some note that success requires significant independent textbook reading, particularly under instructors like Christopher Demarco.

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

E C E 340 or member of Engineering Guest Students

    • ECE 340
    • member of Engineering Guest Students
    take one
ECE 342 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • ECE 340
    • member of Engineering Guest Students

Professors

Fall 2026

No course-specific feedback yet.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Historical reviews for Thomas Jahns and Giri Venkataramanan describe organized lectures and fair exams, though Venkataramanan is criticized for disorganization and low-quality videos. Christopher Demarco's teaching is polarizing; some praise his thoroughness and patience, while others find his dry, textbook-dependent lectures ineffective and his support lacking.

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCO is recorded teaching in Spring 2008, Spring 2011, Spring 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2017, Spring 2022. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

THOMAS JAHNS is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Fall 2008. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Fall 2026

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction21 / 600
LEC 002Classroom Instruction48 / 600

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Historical reviews for ECE 342 are polarized. Some praise organized lectures and fair exams, while others criticize dry teaching, disorganization, and low-quality materials.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.60 GPA, 79.1% A/AB (n=91 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.88 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=93 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.39 GPA, 73.5% A/AB (n=117 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Historical reviews of Christopher Demarco, Giri Venkataramanan: Reviews describe high effort and difficult exams. Some note that success requires significant independent textbook reading, particularly under instructors like Christopher Demarco.

Historical reviews of Christopher Demarco, Giri Venkataramanan: Experiences range from helpful review sessions and patient instruction to frustration with late grading, subjective TA evaluations, banned technology, and poor lecture videos.

Topics

  • Advanced transistor amplifier analysis and feedback
  • Power amplifiers, op-amps, filters, oscillators, and data converters
  • CMOS digital circuit design

Skills

  • Design and analysis of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits
  • Transistor-level CMOS digital circuit design

Grades

Historical instructor

Fall 2026 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.23 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Fall 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1283 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
ECE 342 · Fall 2026

Electronic Circuits II

Recorded 2026-09-07
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20260907T155543-ce3781c4",
    "semester": "1272",
    "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1272:320:006332",
    "course_id": "ECE 342",
    "course_uid": "course_c0ebe6c49e0bb97123ed508f",
    "term_id": "1272",
    "source_course_id": "006332",
    "source_subject_id": "320",
    "title": "Electronic Circuits II",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-09-07

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "cfa630df987b449455d34f269039fb2f4fa7db1511b764fdb5f3b3eaed1bf727",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}