Embedded Electronics System Design – (M.Sc.)

This programme educates engineers who can conceive complex embedded systems specifications, design such systems at the electronics systems level (ESL) and implement and verify the systems using state-of-the-art integrated circuits and packaging technologies and design tools. The programme provides in-depth coverage of the methodologies critical to the process.

Embedded systems combine hardware and software components to achieve certain functionalities. A well-known example is the mobile phone of today – a handheld low-power device that carries out signal processing at the same time it is able to entertain its user with computer games, Internet sessions, and/or streaming audio/video.

Device functionality must be implemented within challenging constraints such as computer performance, real-time demands, reliability, power consumption and design factors. To meet the requirements within the constraints, designers must not only understand the technology of commodity hardware components such as microprocessors, they must also master the design of application-specific electronic systems.

Who should apply
The programme naturally finds its participants among bachelor degree holders in electrical engineering or computer engineering, as well among students of physics engineering or from the field of control and automation.

Why apply
Graduates are qualified to work as productive engineers on industrial teams that design and build state-of-the-art electronics products. They are also qualified to pursue graduate studies leading to a doctorate in the field of electronic system design and packaging. Specifically, this means that our graduates are:

* proficient in the basic area of conceiving, designing, implementing and verifying complex embedded electronic systems; the area ranges from software for embedded electronic systems to analogy transistor circuits,
* proficient in the use of various state-of-the-art computer-aided design tools used in industry,
* aware of the fundamental limitations of both the design tools and methodologies, and the technology platforms that represent current best practice,
* able to analyse new technical challenges and generate technical advancements at either the embedded electronic systems level or at the device, circuit and packaging level,
* able to carry out qualified industrial tasks within given constraints by applying suitable methods; this also applies when, in an industrial context, technical aspects might be secondary to constraints associated with finances and the environment,
* able, critically, independently and creatively, to identify, formulate and solve complex problems in the field of embedded electronic system design and to make software/hardware trade-offs,
* able, critically and systematically, to integrate knowledge to model, simulate, predict and evaluate behaviour and events, even with limited or incomplete information,
* able, clearly and unambiguously, to communicate their conclusions and the knowledge and rationale underpinning these conclusions.