Educating hardware design — From primary school children to postgraduate engineers

The future of hardware development lies in massively parallel hardware architectures as used in embedded as well as high-performance systems, for instance streaming-based, real-time and database applications. Especially field-programmable gate arrays provide a platform for the rapid development of integrated circuits and the accompanied software. For reasons of energy efficiency, it is increasingly important to tailor hardware directly to the application. As such systems are very complex, the training of engineers has to start early. Furthermore, the usual curricula in computer science and electrical engineering teach only basic skills. Our approach does not start with specialized courses in master or diploma programs, but already with the motivation of primary school children for technical disciplines. Girls and boys are addressed equally. In school, children are made familiar with programmable circuits and thus motivated to study computer science with a specialization in computer engineering. In this paper we present our lectures and practical courses for bachelor and master students. With examples from final bachelor and master projects we demonstrate the quality of our education and its integration into current research.