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New VIP Short Course in Computer Systems Manufacturing
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This Fall, Prof. Wayne Burleson of the ECE department will be 
developing a new VIP short course in Computer Systems
Manufacturing.   The course consists of 10 50-minute lectures,
five given by Prof. Burleson and five by industrial guest lecturers.

The course is developed as part of the UMASS senior-level course ECE551, 
Computer Systems Lab with additional funding from ARPA through the Engineering 
Academy of Southern New England.

The objective of the course is to present modern methods for manufacturing
computer systems, and methods for dealing with manufacturing issues at the
design stage.  Specific topics include: 

Manufacturing economics, system and component 
fabrication methods, HW/SW system design, rapid-prototyping, design re-use, 
testability and reliability, quality, CAD tools, 

Programmable logic design, Types of PLDs and FPGAs, Hardware
Description languages (VHDL), Logic synthesis;

Microprocessor architecture, insturction sets. programming, hw/sw co-design, RAMs, 
asynchronous interfaces; 

Printed circuit board design, layout, manufacture and test;  costing,
connectors, noise, EMI, ESD, high-speed techniques; 

Micro-controllers and Digital Signal Processors:  Discussion of
dedicated processors such as micro-controllers and DSPs, algorithms, 
programming, serial and parallel interfaces; 

The course will also have 5 demonstrations including:
DEMO 1: Spreadsheet Analysis of manufacturing economics.
DEMO 2: Synthesizing Altera FPGAs from VHDL 
DEMO 3: Interfacing the 68000 to Memory;
DEMO 4: PCB Board design and auto-routing with PADs
DEMO 5: Using Micro-chip PIC micro-controller chips
DEMO 6: Using Texas Instruments DSP chips

A highlight of this course will be
five guest lecturers from the Computer Industry who will visit UMASS and
present industrial examples of computer systems emphasizing manufacturing
issues.  

1) Bill Larkins, DEKA, Manchester, NH.  DEKA manufactures electro-mechanical
systems for medical applications.  

2) Richie Paine, Analog Devices, Norwood, MA.  This lecture describes the
manufacture of micromachined accelerometer chips for use in automobiles.

3) John Day, Microchip, Framingham, MA.  Microchip manufactures a family of
low-cost microcontrollers and support chips.  

4) Dhilip Bhavsar, Digital Equipment, Hudson, MA.  Dr. Bhavsar will discuss
design-for-test methods used in the lastest ALPHA microprocessors from DEC.

5) Tom Kuchta,  Cadence Design Systems, Chelmsford, MA.  Cadence provides
CAD tools for the design and manufacture of a wide variety of electronic
systems and components.  

Further information on the course can be obtained from the WWW at:
//http:www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/vspgroup/burleson/courses/551