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Move Over, Intel
NYIT's engineering students master a radical approach to chip design.
NYIT's students have a big interest in tiny chips. in recent months, students from NYIT's School of Engineering and Technology have worked closely with faculty members to test Systems on a Chip (SOC). If Silicon Valley's technology pundits are correct, SOC chips will revolutionize how electronic devices are designed and programmed.
Think of SOC as a complete programmable computer-all on a single chip. Systems that use SOC chips (which are based on microcontroller technology) include automobile computers, cable modems, printers, scanners, cell phones and other small mobile-computing devices.
Mastering SOC technology is of keen interest to NYIT's engineering students. "As an electrical engineer, it's extremely important for me to understand how systems on a chip are designed and programmed," says William Myers, a senior at NYIT who participated in the SOC lab research. "Analog electrical components and consumer devices are rapidly moving toward the digital revolution. I have to stay at the forefront of that revolution in order to further my career."
Myers attends evening classes at NYIT and expects to earn his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering this spring. "I came to NYIT because of its solid reputation, small class sizes and devotion to technology," he says.
By day, Myers is an associate electrical engineer at Transistor Devices Inc. (TDI) of Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The company develops power supplies for cellular communications, data storage, computer networks and rugged mobile equipment-which are prime candidates for SOC microcontrollers.
Economic Influence
The emergence of SOC microcontrollers comes at a critical time for NYIT students and the broader U.S. economy.
"Competition has forced businesses to get products to market as quickly as possible," says Dr. Edward Kafrissen, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at NYIT. "That's why SOC microcontrollers are so compelling. They can help companies to shorten development times because a product's intelligence can be put onto one inexpensive chip-rather than a series of chips that need to be purchased from multiple suppliers."
Take, for example, the automobile industry. Automotive engineers are using SOC microcontrollers to design systems that monitor driver habits, climate control, safety equipment, cockpit electronics and other sensors throughout a car. A single microcontroller can be reconfigured to perform multiple functions on the fly, thereby eliminating the need for thousands of expensive custom chips.
Despite the sputtering economy, demand for microcontrollers-and electrical engineers who understand them-remains strong. Microcontroller shipments are expected to grow 11 percent annually from 2001 to 2006, according to InStat/MicroDesign Resources, a market research firm in Scottsdale, Ariz., that tracks the electronics industry.
Eager to put SOC chips to the test, Myers and seven other senior-year
students experimented with the microcontrollers in NYIT's engineering labs. The student-run experiments were overseen by Dr. Kafrissen and endorsed by Dr. Ayat Jafari, chairperson and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at NYIT.
"This was more than a test of microcontroller technology," says Dr. Jafari. "It was a shining example of how our students can apply their engineering and programming skills in our labs."
Short Circuits?
Still, testing the microcontrollers involved two very tall challenges. First, there were no student textbooks or manuals that described how to experiment with SOC chips because the technology is in its infancy. Second, NYIT (like most colleges) didn't have the microcontrollers and programming tools on-hand.
Fortunately, NYIT has influential alumni in all the right places. Enter Carl Finke (B.S. '85), an electrical engineer at Cypress Semiconductor Corp. of San Jose, Calif. Cypress has a subsidiary in Bothell, Wash., that designs its own family of microcontrollers, known as the Programmable System on a Chip (PSOC). Finke works out of a regional office on Long Island.
With Finke's support, Cypress provided PSoC chips and related programming tools to NYIT's Lab 5 engineering class in early 2002. However, more problems remained. After experimenting with the microcontrollers for a few hours, the students determined that they needed a formal training session for the chips. Finke-who lives a short distance from NYIT's Old Westbury campus-filled a critical void and offered the students a three-hour training session at no cost to the college.
"Carl's tutelage was very successful," says Dr. Kafrissen. "After his visit, the students were prepared with enough basic knowledge to develop their individual experiments."
Students used traditional laptop computers and the Assembly programming language to program the PSOC chips. "Our experiment was not really design-oriented, but more tailored toward learning how a complete PSOC system works," recalls Myers.
The Write Code
During the 15-week class, students configured the microcontrollers' operating parameters, which is a basic set of instructions that outlines how the chip will function. Students also configured PSOC user modules to the desired pins on the chip.
In general terms, a user module allows a PSOC chip to perform a specific task. For instance, an infrared module allows designers to write applications that can communicate wirelessly with mobile devices, such as Palm handhelds.
After the module designs were completed, the students wrote code for their individual applications. "We tested our code on an emulator, which is software that mimics how the chip will perform. We then moved the code from a laptop to the PSOC chip," says Myers. "The PSOC microcontroller uses Flash technology, which means it can be written over many times. Our group successfully implemented and wrote applications for several different user modules."
In Rare Company
As of press time, NYIT remains among a handful of colleges where engineering students have actively programmed SOC microcontrollers.
"Many colleges don't adapt and update their curriculum quickly enough to reflect emerging technologies," asserts Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, editor of Practical Technology and contributor to Software Development Times, a leading magazine for programmers. "Clearly, NYIT's engineering program is a leader-rather than a laggard."
Aside from NYIT, SOC studies are under way at several Canadian universities, thanks to $26 million in research funds from the Canadian Microelectronics Corp., a nonprofit organization funded by the Canadian government.
And in Silicon Valley, electronics specialist Synopsys Inc. has launched a venture fund that pumps investment money into about 10 SOC-related companies per year. The investments, which range from $250,000 to $4 million per company, seek to seed the market with even more advanced microcontrollers.
Back on the East Coast, SOC technology remains a mystery to many engineering students-except for those who attend NYIT. "I came here for a great education," says Myers. "I wound up getting a glimpse at the future."
Research notes supplied by William Myers and Dr. Edward Kafrissen.
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