E40M

Solving Circuits using Nodal Analysis

and EveryCircuitTM

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 1

 How Do We Figure Out the
Voltages and Currents?

Diode

Solar Volt
Li Bat

R
Cell Conv

In this set of lecture notes we’ll develop methods to analyze circuits.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 2
 Useless Box Lab Project #2

• Concepts
– Finite State Machines
– Digital Logic
– Binary numbers
– CMOS Gate
– Programming

• Devices
– Motors
In Lab 2, you’ll build more complex circuits
– Switches involving switches, motors and transistors. In
– nMOS this set of lecture notes, we develop a toolbox to
– pMOS analyze circuit voltages and currents and also,
introduce EveryCircuit, a circuit simulator.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 3

 Reading For These Topics

• Reader, Chapter 3 (except 3.5)

• A&L
– 3.1 3.2 – Node voltages
– 3.3/3.3.1 – Nodal analysis
– 3.5 – Superposition

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 4

Key Ideas From The Last Few Lectures - Review

• Devices you should know and symbols you should recognize

• You should understand the device i - v curves of these devices

• You should understand KCL, KVL and power: P = i·v

• You should be comfortable using a DMM to measure voltage,

current and resistance (conceptually at this point)

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 5

 Solving For Voltages and Currents

• Given a circuit, and device models

– Want to solve for device voltages and currents

• Be lazy or efficient
– With the least work possible

• KVL means
– Not all device voltages are independent
– Can we formulate the problem differently
• Reduce the number of variables we need to deal with?

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 6

 The Ground (Gnd) Reference Voltage

• KVL forces the voltage across a device to not

depend on the path you take

• So
– We can make any node a reference node
and define its voltage to be zero … choose
the lower node
– And measure the voltages of other nodes
with respect to the reference node’s
voltage, which is zero:
Vb – Vc à Vb – 0 = Vb

– Device voltages are found from the

differences of the node voltages

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 7

 What are the Device Voltages?

• Why doesn’t “e” have a voltage?

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 8

 Beware of Gnd (Ground)

• Since voltages are all relative

– Often designs will declare one voltage to be the reference
– We generally call this voltage ground (gnd)

• There is also something called “earth ground”

– And this is the voltage of a metal pipe running through
the earth
– This is the voltage of the round hole on 3 pronged
grounded power outlet

• Not all nodes labeled gnd are connected to earth ground

– And not all earth gnds are at exactly the same potential

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 9

 Nodal Analysis: The General Solution Method

1. Label all the nodes (VA, VB, or V1, V2, etc.), after selecting the node
you choose to be Gnd.

2. Label all the branch currents (i1, i2, etc.) and choose directions for
each of them

3. Write the KCL equations for every node except the reference (Gnd)
• Sum of the device currents at each node must be zero

4. Substitute the equations for each device’s current as a function of

the node voltages, when possible

5. Solve the resulting set of equations

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 10

 An Example

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 11

 An Example

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 12

 Another Example

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 13

 A More Complicated Example

Step 1

(a) Identify the nodes

Io
with at least 3 branches
R3 R4 R6
(b) Select one of them
R2 as the reference node
R1 R5
Vo +-
(c) Label the rest of
the nodes with
voltages V1, V2, …

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 14

 Result of Step 1

Step 2

Io
Apply KCL at each of the nodes
R3 V1 R4 R6 you labeled in step 1
V3
V2
R2
R1 R5
Vo +-

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 15

 Steps 3 and 4, Combined

Node 1

Node 2

Node 3

F. T. Ulaby and M. M. Maharbiz, Circuits, NSTP, 2009, pp. 83-85.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 16

 Step 5

• Solve the resulting nodal equations:

F. T. Ulaby and M. M. Maharbiz, Circuits, NSTP, 2009, pp. 83-85.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 17

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 18
 How To Reduce Circuit Complexity

• Fewer variables is better

– Could be fewer nodes
– Could be fewer devices

• Can we break the circuit into pieces

– Look at a sub-circuit
– Replace that sub-circuit with a simpler equivalent

• We’ll look at several examples

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 19

 Series Combinations

R1 R2
• Two resistors in series (“share a current”)
– The voltage across the combination is the
sum of the device voltages
– The current through the devices is the
same
– So the effective resistance of the series is
R = R1 + R2

• So we can replace series resistors

– With a single equivalent resistor
– Removes a node voltage and device from
our equations!

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 20

 Parallel Combinations

• Two resistors in parallel

– The total current through parallel resistors
R1 R2
is the sum of the currents through the two
resistors
– The voltage across each resistor is the
same … they “share a voltage”
– So the effective resistance of parallel
resistors is:

1/R = 1/R1 + 1/R2

R = (R1·R2) / (R1+R2)

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 21

 Using Series and Parallel Combinations
to Simplify Circuits

Example: Find the resistance between

node a and node b

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 22

 Example

• Notice that some circuits have multiple connections to gnd.

– This just means that they are all connected together.
• Look at the circuit to see if there are new simplifications
• Assume R = 1 kΩ

+
Vs
-

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 23

 But What About This Circuit?

• R3 and R4 are in series

– But I need to find the voltage at the node I will eliminate
– “collapse and then expand”
• First eliminate the node to simplify the circuit

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 24

 First Solve for the Voltage at Node B

Node A

R’ = ?

Node B

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 25

 Then Solve for the Voltage at Node C

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 26

 Voltage Divider

• First simplify circuit to a single resistor and find the current I

• Then use the current to find the voltage Va
I

I=
R1
V + a
- R2 Va =

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 27

 Current Divider

• In this case simplify the circuit to a single resistor, then

find voltage across each resistor and use it to find the current
through each resistor
a

I1 I2
I R1 R2

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 28

 Intuition on Dividers

• Voltage divider: R2 = 10 R1 … what is Va = VR2 in terms of V?

• Current divider: R2 = 10 R1 … what is I2 in terms of I?

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 29

 Challenge Problem

• Want to find the voltage at each output.

– Assume left-most resistor is driven to 1V

• Doesn’t look series parallel, or is it?

– Can we reduce it to a single resistor with our rules?
1V
V1 V2 V3 V4

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 30

 Challenge Problem

– Collapse/expand approach works:

1V
V1 V2 V3 V4

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 31

 Learning Objectives

• Understand how to solve for device voltage and currents

– First label node voltages (KVL)
– Solve current equations at each node (KCL)
– Called nodal analysis

• Be able to break a large circuit into smaller circuits

– This is standard divide and conquer approach

• Recognize some common circuit patterns

– Which reduce the complexity of the circuit you need to solve
– Start with series and parallel resistors

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 32

 Nodal Analysis Review

VA is known … what is it?

Steps 1 is complete (ref. and node labels.)
Step 2 label branch currents leaving nodes
B and C
Step 3 Apply KCL; Step 4 use device
equations for branch currents; Step 5: solve

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 33

 Nodal Analysis with Current Sources - Review

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 34

 Series-Parallel Reduction - Review

We connect a 2 V battery between nodes 1(+) and 2 (-).

What current flows through the batter?
What is the voltage difference between node 2 and node 3?

1Ω 2Ω

5Ω

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 35

 Series-Parallel Reduction - Review

1Ω 2Ω

5Ω

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 36

 How Do We Figure Out Voltages and Currents?

Diode

Solar Volt
Li Bat

R
Cell Conv

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 37

 EveryCircuit

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 38

 Circuit Debugging

• For future labs you will be building more complex circuits

– You will build these circuits using breadboards

• These circuits will contain many different components

– Including transistors with three connections

• Sometimes these circuits won’t work the way you expect

– Perhaps your circuit is wrong
– Or perhaps you just connected it up wrong
– How do you debug it in either case?

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 39

 Circuit Simulator

• We create a program to estimate how our circuit will behave

• The program shows the wiring in a nice way

– and makes it easy to probe the voltage and current
– It has built-in voltage and current meters

• It also makes it easy to change component values

– So you can tune/play with your circuit

• You are going to use an easy-to-use simulator: EveryCircuit

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 40

 Every Circuit
http://everycircuit.com/app/

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 41

 Every Circuit
http://everycircuit.com/app/

• Simple simulator that we will use for circuits

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 42

 Quick Use Notes

• To connect two nodes, select one node, then select another node.

• To delete a single wire in a node, select the node, then select the
wire, then press Delete.

• To maximize schematic area in browser window (remove circuit

explorer on the left and circuit details on the right) click the right-
most icon in the menu below the schematic.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 43

 Every Circuit’s Keyboard Shortcuts

• R : Rotate selected device

• F : Flip selected device
• A : Adjust parameter of a selected device
• T : Toggle selected switch
• W : Add / remove voltage of selected node or current of selected device
to / from oscilloscope
• S : Adjust simulation speed
• Esc : deselect all
• Arrows : move selected component or workspace
• Plus / Minus : zoom in / out
• Space : start or pause simulation
• Delete : delete selected device or cut selected wire
• Ctrl + Z : Undo
• Ctrl + Y : Redo

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 44

 Activate Your License

• http://everycircuit.com/licensekeyactivation

259825287547

(Good during spring quarter)

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 45

 Superposition For Linear Circuits

• Reason:
– Resistors, voltage, and current sources are linear
– Resulting equations are linear

• What’s the benefit?

– Superposition enables the analysis of several simpler circuits
in place of one complicated circuit
M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 46
 Applying Superposition

• Calculate the response of the circuit for each independent source at

a time, with the other’s turned off
• What happens when we turn off a source?
– Voltage sources: have 0 V (are shorted … replace by a wire)
– Current sources: have 0 current (are opened … replace by a
broken wire)

I V +
- = I
X
V +
- + I
X V +
-

short-circuited open-circuited
so V = 0 so I = 0
M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 47
 Applying Superposition

• We need to “zero-out” sources into order to find the sub-circuits

(one per source)
• Find the current I

F. T. Ulaby and M. M. Maharbiz, Circuits, NSTP, 2009, p. 97.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 48

 Applying Superposition

• We need to “zero-out” sources into order to find the sub-circuits

(one per source)

Sub-circuit 1: V0 shorted Sub-circuit 2: I0 opened

I1 = I2 =

I = I1 + I2=

F. T. Ulaby and M. M. Maharbiz, Circuits, NSTP, 2009, p. 97.

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 49
 Learning Objectives

• EveryCircuit can solve your circuits, so you can be sure your

homework and prelab answers are correct!

• Superposition is a powerful tool for handling multiple sources

• We end up doing more (one per source), but simpler circuits
• We are becoming proficient at single-source circuits – doing
them quickly and knowing we’re right
• Add up the results from the sub-circuits to find the voltage or
current we’re looking for in the complicated circuit

M. Horowitz, J. Plummer, R. Howe 50