What concepts do you think students should learn? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Thane of Cawdor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 08:53:59 am
content: Hi everyone,I just wanted to get your opinions on what you think will be important for EEs to know/learn for the long-term (10-15 years). Also as an aside (and a little more specifically), do you think it's important for EEs to get into FPGA development and do you think there will be more designs requiring the use of FPGAs in the foreseeable future?

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 01:23:29 pm
content: As to FPGAs, yes, I think they are important now and will be important well into the future. So, yes, an EE should be able to write Verilog AND VHDL (System Verilog seems equally important). But it isn't just writing code, it is designing digital hardware. It's about how components like MUXes, Decoders, FSMs and logic are combined to build a system.I also think EEs need to be competent to write C code for embedded systems. This is a complex area and EEs design the hardware so they should be able to make it play. At a minimum, they need to demonstrate functionality to the CS types. I guarantee there will be arguments about whether the problem is hardware or software. As an EE, it will come down to you proving the hardware is correct.I think ALL engineers need to be competent with wxMaxima and Matlab. Heresy, I know, but familiarity with Fortran will be helpful when you want a quick answer. Excel can also be used for modeling. I once modeled the deionized water flow for an entire semiconductor plant to prove that we had adequate flow rates throughout the system. The Method of Residuals that you learn in Heat Transfer is quite helpful. It's been about 30 years and I can't remember how I did it but IIRC, it took 3 iterations to balance the flow. I think today I would build an electrical model and use LTspice.Obviously, add LTspice to the list of requirements.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 01:25:57 pm
content: Proper use of version control systemsand bugtrackers. Including hardware and documents.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 02:01:29 pm
content: Of course, to be able to be fairly familiar with proper SPICE simulation techniques.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 02:11:19 pm
content: Quote from: Thane of Cawdor on September 25, 2017, 08:53:59 amAre you really so short sighted that 10-15 years seems long term? A career is maybe 40 years. If you don't want to hit a brick wall half way through, you'd better develop a different view of long term.If you left college 40 years ago with a good selection of strategic knowledge, and a sprinkling of tactical knowledge to help in getting that first job, you'd still be doing fine today (Been there. Done that.).As to what to focus on, my suggestion is focus on applied maths. Classes of mathematical techniques (LTI filtering) tend to keep getting recycled with new implementation techniques - e.g. analogue filters moved to digital filters, which in turn migrated through a number of approaches to their implementation, but knowledge of filtering techniques never gets stale. It just expands and morphs.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 02:40:29 pm
content: Quote from: Thane of Cawdor on September 25, 2017, 08:53:59 amI'll presume you mean "learn at university", since beyond university the question cannot reasonably be answered.Easy: the same as they should have been taught over the past 50 years. That's timeless fundamentals such as control loop theory, metastability, FSMs, Thevenin and Norton equivalents, Spice frequency and time domain analysis etc etc.The tools will change with monotonous regularity, and if the timeless fundamentals are understood, then the tools are trivial. Example: in 1981 I was creating embedded systems using cross-compiled C to run on 8-bit processors, and debugging/single-stepping them with in-circuit emulators. Guess what I was doing when I revisited embedded systems in 2014. Once I had decided what to buy and installed the IDE, I was up and running in 1 hour.Depressingly little had changed, except that things were cheap enough for amateurs to buy them from beer money.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2017, 02:43:50 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on September 25, 2017, 02:11:19 pmJust so. Exactly.Many people seem content that "15 years experience" is really 1 years experience repeated 15 times

author: Thane of Cawdor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2017, 07:34:12 pm
content: True! Thanks for the responses