IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q3 2021 - 94

Circuits and Systems in Turkey
T
he father of Modern Circuit Theory in Turkey is
Tarik Özker of the Istanbul Technical University
(ITU). He was the first teacher who introduced
discrete time systems with Dirac delta function d( t )
in the context of distribution theory in 1956. His successors
were Yilmaz Tokad, Ahmet Dervisoglu, Cem
Göknar, Fuat Anday, Ergul Akcakaya, Cevdet Acar, and
Vedat Tavsanoglu.
Yilmaz Tokad, a former professor of Michigan State
University (MSU), East Lansing, Michigan, returned
to Turkey in 1968 and joined the faculty of the Middle
East Technical University at Ankara, Turkey and started
teaching circuit and systems courses incorporating
also mechanical signal variables. In 1974, he joined ITU
as a Chair Professor of Circuits & Systems and head of
the Electronics Research Division of National Research
Center of Turkey. It should be noted that circuit theory's
grandfather for Turkey was Professor Myril B. Reed as
he was the Ph.D. adviser of Tariq Özker (University of
Illinois, 1951) and Yilmaz Tokad, the two pillars of electrical
circuits in Turkey.
Until mid 1970s, CAS lectures have been delivered
only in Istanbul at ITU, Bogazici University, Yildiz
Technical University, and Middle East Technical University
(METU) in Ankara. After mid 1970s, university
education has been spread out to Anatolia; firstly, with
Black Sea Technical University where circuits and systems
education was initiated by professors from ITU.
Early in the 1980s, electrical engineering departments
were established at several other cities in Turkey including
Ege University at Izmir, Ataturk University at
Erzurum, Erciyes University at Kayseri, Anadolu University
at Eskisehir, Uludag University at Bursa, Gaziantep
University under METU and Istanbul University
at Istanbul.
Then, formal courses on circuits and systems along
with laboratory instructions were offered by the graduates
of ITU and METU, who also published textbooks on
network analysis, active filters and switched-capacitor
filters in Turkish language.
Nowadays in Turkey, well designed, advanced circuit
and systems education programs both in undergraduate
and graduate level exist country-wide. These programs
include topics on computer aided linear/nonlinear circuit
analysis, synthesis of passive, active, switchedDigital
Object Identifier 10.1109/MCAS.2021.3092590
Date of current version: 12 August 2021
94
IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
capacitor and digital filters, Analog to Digital and Digital
to Analog Converter designs, digital dynamical systems,
logic-digital circuit designs, fault detection and fault tolerant
design, RF and microwave circuit design, IC, VLSI
and MMIC designs etc. As far as system theory education
is concerned,
linear-nonlinear, analog, discretetime,
adaptive, fuzzy, chaotic, stochastic systems are
covered at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.
In all CAS and circuit design courses, computer aided
analysis and design tools such MATLAB, Simulink,
SPICE, ADS, AWR, Cadence, Mentor etc. are employed
by both undergraduate and graduate students as well as
researchers. Advanced level research activities in CAS
were initiated by T. Özker, A. Dervisoglu, C. Göknar, B.S.
Yarman and V. Tavsanoglu.
The first pioneering electric-circuit implementation
work of Turkey was to locally design and manufacture
analog filters using image parameters method by the
Post Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1965. The
urgent need, then, was to separate 12-analog voice
channels of 3.4 MHz over the frequency band of 60 kHz
to 108 kHz. This engineering project was led by the Lab
director Fikret Yucel and his team composed of legendary
engineers of the country namely Celal Altas, Ender
Olcayto, Sucul Aribas and Ersan Kinayyigit. Upon
the development of Digital Communication Systems in
1984, PCM based communication system components
of the Turkish Telephone network were designed and
produced at the Electronic Research Unit of the National
Research Center of Turkey led by Prof. Yilmaz Tokad.
Then, two major Telecom companies, namely Teletas
and Netas were established to manufacture digital
switches and microwave radio-links. Teletas used to
rely on Alcatel's digital communication technology in
France, whereas Netas was relying on Northern Telecom
Technology of Canada. In 1975, Turkish Military Industries
Corporation, namely ASELSAN became an active
design and manufacturing house to produce RF and Microwave
components and systems such as walkie-talkies,
electronic warfare units etc. to cover the needs of
military. In this regard, ASELSAN designs and manufactures
microwave passive circuit components such as
filters (using waveguides, lumped circuit elements, microstrip
lines, co-planar lines etc.), matching networks,
resonators, hybrids, antennas, and microwave active
components such as microwave amplifiers (small single
and multi-stage amplifiers and power amplifiers) etc. In
Istanbul ITU, YTU and Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa,
THIRD QUARTER 2021
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