Introducing an industry oriented graduate course: Testing of digital systems
According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), for more than four decades, the semiconductor industry has distinguished itself by the rapid pace of improvements in its products. However, the cost of the increased functionality of components, circuits, and systems, is the requirement of more verification and test of the electronic products. In current projects, verification engineers outnumber designers, with the ratio reaching two or three to one for the most complex designs. Additionally, the present globalization trends and needs are driving the universities worldwide, to find new avenues in the programs that they are offering, to be attractive to their prospective students. Addressing the above mentioned matters, an industry oriented graduate course “Testing of Digital Systems” was created and offered for the first time in the academic year 2009–2010 at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana. The paper presents the rationale, integration of the new course in the ECE curricula, description of the course and laboratory activities developed around an industrial grade Automatic Test Equipment, preliminary assessment plans and conclusions.
The Impact of Providing Unlimited Access to Programmable Boards in Digital Design Education
This paper presents the benefits and costs of providing students with unlimited access to programmable boards in digital design education, allowing hands-on experiences outside traditional laboratory settings. Studies were conducted at three universities in two different countries-Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN; Washington State University, Pullman; and Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania-to measure the effect on student learning and student performance of students having their own programmable hardware systems and unrestricted access to the most commonly used design tools. The results of the studies, supported by assessment data from various sources, suggest that the overall learning process is improved, and students gain a better knowledge of modern technologies and design methods if they are given full time access to programmable logic boards.
Quantitative and qualitative relationship between swirl burner operatingconditions and pulverized coal flame length
Abstract Currently, there are used in power plants two types of burners to combustion the pulverized coal: jet burners and swirl burners. Most of the published works in the field of analysis of burners operating conditions are related to jet burners and are limited to initial region of the flame at the outlet of the burner. For jet burners an offset between the burner outlet and the flame beginning point could be analyzed. In the case of swirl burners with the pre-mixing diffuser chamber an offset between flame ignition point and burner outlet is usually not visible. Because already in the pre-mixing diffuser chamber of swirl burner occurs the ignition of coal-dust together with oxidant-gas cloud and thereby the formation of the flame. Therefore, the analysis of operating conditions for this types of burners requires a different approach. There is a lack of researches, in which will be analyzed changes of the flame length, that are caused by changes of design and operating parameters of swirl burner with the pre-mixing diffuser chamber. Therefore the aim of this study was to implement and verify the methodology for estimating the flame length, which will allow monitoring changes of operating conditions, that are caused by changes of design and operating parameters of swirl burner with the pre-mixing diffuser chamber. To carry out the analysis of the image of the coal flame, the two algorithms have been presented. This two algorithms, being based on the video images of the coal flame allows to specify and detect the end point of the flame and on that basis the length of the flame, as well as the fluctuation changes of flame length can be later determined. Both, the change thermal loads of coal burner, streams of secondary air, as well as the constructional change of the angle of swirler assemblies, resulted in distinct changes in the length of the pulverized coal flame.