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.
Testing digital circuits using a Mixed-Signal Automatic Test Equipment
This paper presents the results of parametric testing of digital ICs using a dedicated Mixed Signal Automatic Testing Equipment. Due to the prohibitive price of the ATE equipment and dedicated Device Interface Board (DIB) for digital Integrated Circuits (ICs), a DIB for analog circuits was used to perform the testing. Despite the challenges presented by the experiments, the results prove to be accurate for the performed tests, according to the data sheet of the digital ICs and production test data provided by the manufacturer.
A goal-oriented approach to laboratory development and implementation
Curriculum committees of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) have recently advocated the use of laboratories in computer science curricula. There is much interest in laboratories and as with any “popular” pedagogical device there is the rush to adopt first and analyze later. Adding laboratories to a curriculum does not automatically make it a better program and, in fact, can make it worse if there is not a clear vision se to the goals that will be achieved by the addition. In this paper we will present a goal-oriented approach to the creation and implementation of laboratories in the undergraduate computer science curriculum. We will summarize a number of issues and concerns discussed during numerous workshop activities and will present ideas we have found successful in implementing closed labs at our respective universities. In the next section, a few terms will be defined. In section 3 we will discuss issues regarding the goals for closed labs and some of their implications. In section 4 we will discuss methods of evaluation and lastly, in section 5 guidelines for the development and implementation of these closed labs will be presented.