Work in progress — Design and delivery of the graduate course on electronic systems integration

This paper discusses the approach to improve the preparation of graduate students in Electrical Engineering for projects in the electronics industry by introducing the graduate course: Electronic Systems Design and Integration. The course emphasizes the understanding and skills necessary for students to achieve competencies at the system and sub-system level of electronic project design, test, and validation. Basic and advanced electronic circuits are studied and modeled in terms of their input-output characteristics. In this course, the circuit simulation software, the printed circuit board design software, printed circuit board maker and its related software are introduced to students. Students are required to complete several subsystem level and system level projects by employing the above software and hardware to design, build, test, and validate the final products. Through this procedure, students learn the required software and hardware for the electronic systems design and become familiar with the process to manufacture printed circuit board based electronic circuits. The purpose of offering this course is to (a) enable graduate students to apply what they learn in electronics courses during undergraduate studies to design complex circuits for electronic systems integration, and (b) to prepare students for electronic systems design and integration projects in industry.