ECE Special Topic Courses

Fall
Winter
Spring


Fall 2009

ECE 507 - Seminar: GasP Research
Taught by Ivan Sutherland, PSU
Mondays 2:00-3:50 p.m.

This class will help students gain familiarity with circuit design as well as analysis.  Because we will explore novel circuits the seminar will help students identify research projects worthy of further exploration.  Each student will do a small project each week and report on it in class.  Most projects will involve SPICE simulations of small circuits.  More...

Email Dr. Sutherland: ivans@cecs.pdx.edu


ECE 510 - RFIC Design
Taught by Richard Campbell, PSU
Monday/Wednesday 5:00-6:50 p.m.
Held at the Capital Center in Beaverton: 18640 NW Walker Road

The class is a hands-on exploration of Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit design, using actual devices and circuits fabricated in TriQuint's TQPED 130 nm pHEMT process.  Student projects will include design, critical design review, fabrication, and measurement of actual GaAs devices and ICs.  ECE 531 and ECE 532 are prerequisites.

Email Dr. Campbell: campbell@ece.pdx.edu
Dr. Cambell's web site


ECE 510 - System Design with Programmable Logic
Taught by Roy Kravitz & Shiv Prakash
Thursdays 5:30-9:10 p.m.
Held at the Capital Center in Beaverton: 18640 NW Walker Road

Programmable logic devices such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are a major part of digital design.  Advances in semiconductor technology have made it possible to implement a complex, high performance system on a single programmable chip. This course discusses tools and techniques for designing, verifying and implementing System-on-Chip (SoC) designs using programmable logic.  The course has a both an academic and project orientation: Students take several projects from concept through synthesis and debug on an FPGA development board while exploring the techniques used to optimize the design to meet high speed timing requirements.  Mentor Graphics and Xilinx design automation software tools are used. Students must be familiar with Verilog HDL or willing to adjust from VHDL.   Knowledge of Assembly language programming would be helpful.

Email Dr. Kravitz: Roy.Kravitz@serveron.com


ECE 510 - State Space Tracking
Taught by James McNames, PSU
Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:50 p.m.

Survey of modern approaches to estimating the state of linear and nonlinear dynamic systems. Topics include linear systems theory, the Kalman filter, the extended Kalman filter, unscented Kalman filter, and the particle filter. Lectures and assignments will include theory, implementation, and applications of these methods. Designed to give a solid introduction and fundamental understanding of the advantages, limitations, and trade offs for each of these methods.

Dr. McNames' email: mcnames@ece.pdx.edu
Dr. McNames' website


Winter 2010

ECE 510 - Embedded System Design & Programming with Programmable Logic
Taught by Roy Kravitz
Tuesdays 5:30-9:10 p.m.
Held at the Capital Center in Beaverton: 18640 NW Walker Road

Microprocessor-based embedded systems are everywhere.  The typical American household uses about 50 microprocessors, not counting personal computers, with the number rising every year.  This course builds on the solid hardware-centric base for system-on-chip design gained in ECE 510 – System Design with Programmable Logic by teaching embedded system design and programming.  The course has both an academic and project orientation; students take several embedded system projects from concept through debug on an FPGA development board while learning how to design and implement integrated hardware/software applications that interact with “real world” devices.  Xilinx synthesis and embedded system software tools and the GNU tool chain are used.  Programming is done in C.
Prerequisites
ECE 510 – System Design with Programmable Logic or consent of instructor.  You should be comfortable programming in C and/or C++ and using Verilog or VHDL for synthesis. 

Email Dr. Kravitz: Roy.Kravitz@serveron.com


ECE 510 - Wireless Communications
Taught by Fu Li, PSU
Monday/Wednesdays 5:00-6:50 p.m.
Held at the Capital Center in Beaverton: 18640 NW Walker Road

Description coming soon.

Email Dr. Li: fli@ece.pdx.edu
Dr. Li's website


Spring 2010

ECE 510 - Advanced Embedded In Silico and In Materio Computing
Taught by Christof Teuscher, PSU
Day/Time TBA

Imagine a biomolecular computer that monitors your cholesterol level, a bacterial computer that senses dangerous chemicals in the environment, a self-adapting and self-repairing massive-scale sensor network on an unmanned spacecraft exposed to hard radiation, or a paintable computer on your wall that displays your friends' Twitter tweets. How do you design a reliable computer architecture based on unreliable non-silicon and non-Boolean computing components? How do you program, test, and maintain a massive-scale embedded system that needs to be robust and reconfigurable? How can you compute with non-Boolean systems by exploiting the inherent complex dynamics a physical devices provides?
Embedded systems are dedicated special-purpose computers that often have to process information with real-time, spatial, power, and other constraints. Embedded control systems are ubiquitous today in consumer, industrial, and military devices, a trend that will undoubtedly continue, in particular in view of new application domains and new computing devices, such as biomolecular and other non-silicon devices. This course introduces and develops the advanced hardware and software concepts and the design methodologies an engineer will need to master in order to design and program such novel embedded in silico and in materio computing systems. Special emphasis will be given to the engineering and scientific aspects of distributed, (self-) adaptive, and intelligent information processing and to the interconnect and communication aspects.
The course is designed to provide a solid overview on multiple emerging technologies and an understanding of the advantages, limitations, and trade-offs of each of them. Students will read relevant literature and explore concepts in hands-on mini-projects.

Dr. Teuscher's teaching website: http://www.teuscher-lab.com/teaching
Dr. Teuscher's website: http://www.teuscher-lab.com/christof
Dr. Teuscher's lab website: http://www.teuscher-lab.com


 
Graduation 2009
Click here to view our 2008-2009 ECE graduates, award & scholarship winners and slideshows of our graduates and ceremony.
Robert Daasch

Dr. Robert Daasch has won the Semiconductor Research Corporation 2009 Technical Excellence Award. It is the second highest research award in the SRC. The Technical Excellence Award was established as an incentive and recognition program for research of exceptional value to GRC members. Authorized by the Board of Directors in December 1991, the award is intended to complement the Inventor Recognition Award. The Technical Excellence Award is shared among key contributors for innovative technology that significantly enhances the productivity/
competitiveness of the semiconductor industry. To date 25 research efforts have received the award. The 2008 Technical Excellence Award was presented to a team of researchers from Portland State University led by Professor W. Robert Daasch, and supported by students Liwei Ning (PhD 2009), and Amit Nahar (MS 2006) for their research, "Burn-in Reduction: Improving Outlier Screening".

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