Incorporating commercial electronic design automation into electrical and computer engineering curriculum

Abstract

American engineering colleges and universities are serving two types of clients; directly, our students and indirectly, our industry. Traditional formal instructional education has fulfilled the needs of our students, but only partially addressed the needs of our industries. Incorporating commercially available integrated Electronic Design Automation(EDA) software into the engineering curriculum will provide our graduating students not only the necessary formal training but also the hands-on commercial EDA experience to effectively contribute to our workforce. Teachers have long known what researches have only recently confirmed about the value of active learning: students do learn more and better by becoming actively involved. Early exposure to commercial EDA tools will allow our students to become actively involved during their freshman year and progresses further to handle advanced project-oriented courses in later years. Continued use of this integrated commercial EDA environment throughout the curriculum minimized student's learning curve and reinforces EDA proficiencies and its methodologies. Furthermore, new information can be meaningfully connected to prior knowledge and skills, and students will be able to transfer their previous knowledge and skills to new context meeting their goals as well as the teacher's goals. This paper presents an approach to utilize an integrated set of commercially available EDA tools to supplement formal learning through early introduction of EDA tools. Electrical and Computer Engineering courses that can benefit through the use of the EDA tools are identified. Key issues and concerns will also be discussed such as commercial EDA tools requirements, courseware development, faculty training and support, etc. >