Curriculum and Course Descriptions

Course Curriculums

MS in Electrical Engineering
MS in Computer Engineering
PhD. in Electrical Engineering
Course Descriptions

Course Description

EEN 901(902) Fundamentals of Semiconductor Physics (3 credit units)
The course will focus on crystal structure and crystal binding, introduction to quantum mechanics and quantum statistics, energy band theory, phonon theory of crystal vibrations, equilibrium carrier statistics, recombination-generation processes and carrier transport.Prerequisite: A course in college physics.
EEN 902 Solid-State Electronics for Integrated Circuits (3 credit units)
The course will focus on practical knowledge of fabrication and measurement of common semiconductor devices. It will consist of the processing of light emitting diodes, Schottky diodes, metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitors, p-n junction diodes and field-effect transistors. Students start with plain wafers of silicon or gallium arsenide phosphide and have to design, create, and measure their own devices. Laboratory teaching assistants will supervise the students in these tasks, instruct them on how to make their own photolithography masks and guide the students through the lithography, pattern transfer,metallization and device measurement procedures. In the second term of the class, students will build and construct more advanced devices including MOS field effect transistors, bipolar transistors, microelectromechanical microphones, and laser diodes.
EEN 903 Semiconductor Devices and Modeling (3 credit units)
The course will introduce characterization of basic semiconductor devices based on semiconductor physics, band theory, drift and diffusion, recombination/generation, P-N junctions in equilibrium forward and reverse bias, breakdown, transient and AC behavior, and bipolar junction theory, switching and frequency limitations, Spice modeling theory and methods.
Prerequisite: EEN901 or instructor approval.
EEN 904 (904&905) Integrated Circuit Manufacture Processes (3 credit units)
The course will focus on principles of IC fabrication processes. It will introduce principles and practical aspects of fabrication of devices for MOS and bipolar integrated circuits, semiconductor and process materials, crystal growth and wafer preparation, contamination control and yield, oxidation, rapid thermal processing, photolithography, steppers, X-ray & e-beam lithography, chemical mechanical polishing, doping, ion implantation, deposition (PVD, CVD, Epi), etching, metallization, wafer testing, formation of various devices, manufacturing technology and packaging.Prerequisite: EEN901 or instructor approval.
EEN 905 Digital Design in HDL (3 credit units)
The course will introduce VHDL and Verilog, two IEEE standards of hardware design languages, skills of design and verification, synthesis consideration, timing/power effective designs.
EEN 906 (974) Electromagnetic Fields and Waves (3 credit units)
This course will introduce electromagnetic fields in vacuum and in matter, boundary value problems and Green’s functions, retarded potentials, wave propagation, wave-guides and cavities, radiation, dispersion and absorption.
EEN 908 (920) Scientific Computing (3 credit units)
This course will cover fundamental scientific computing and optimization techniques used in various electronic engineering fields. The techniques include interpolation methods (linear and non-linear interpolation, piece-wise interpolation, Splines, surface interpolation), solving equations and partial differential equations using numerical methods, optimizations (linear programming, dynamic programming, iterative method), approximations, Monte Carlo simulations. Parallel computing will also be introducing using clusters.
EEN 910 Integrated Circuit Design and Method (3 credit units)
The course will be designed to bring students an overview picture of IC design industry. Various IC design methods, tradeoff and applications are introduced. The course projects will allow students to practice different approaches of Full-Custom design, ASIC/SOC design or FPGA design.
EEN 911 VLSI Design I – Circuit Design (3 credit units)
The course will bring fundamental considerations involved in VLSI chip design. Various circuit designs will be introduced to understand design concepts, techniques and tradeoffs in practical implementations, Physical design aspect of and global issues in chip designs, and Design considerations of circuit performance, size and power consumption. Prerequisite: EEN910 or instructor approval.
EEN 912 VLSI Design II – Memory Design (3 credit units)
The course will be an advanced circuit design consideration and implementation. It will focus on various memory design concepts, techniques, and applications involved DRAM/SDRAM, SRAM/SSRAM, ROM, EPROM, FLASH, etc.
Prerequisite: EEN911 or instructor approval.
EEN 913 Microprocessor Design (3 credit units)
The course will introduce various microprocessor architectures, characteristics, and applications, and deliver to students a specific microprocessor design to understand each functional block design and design considerations. Prerequisite: EEN910 and CEN922 or instructor approval.
EEN 915 Analog Circuit Design (3 credit units)
The course will involve Design and analysis of multi-stage BJT and CMOS analog amplifiers, Frequency response of cascaded amplifiers and gain-bandwidth considerations, Concepts of feedback, stability, and frequency compensation.
EEN 916 Mixed Signal IC Design (3 credit units)
The course will focus on the intersection of the digital and analog design worlds. The students are expected to have basic analog circuit and digital design knowledge, and to have used the principal EDA tools like SpectreRF and Verilog. The course will cover SoC system design and mixed signal subsystems such as A/D converters, digital PLLs, embedded CPUs with thermal sensors, DDR PHYs and others. Mixed-signal issues like substrate noise will be explored in detail. The course also includes a significant design project with a simple embedded CPU.
Prerequisite: EEN910 and EEN915 or instructor approval.
EEN 917 Advanced Analog IC Design (3 credit units)
The course will provide an understanding of analog circuit and systems design and complex CMOS IC issues. Topics include high-frequency amplifiers, high-Q oscillators, low-noise circuits, selecting passive components for minimum mismatch, non-linear systems, active filters, A/D and D/A converters, grounding and shielding, layout and system design. Students will design a medium-complexity analog circuit starting from performance and parametric specifications. The course will require heavy use of HSPICE and some electromagnetic modeling.
Prerequisite: EEN915 or instructor approval.
EEN 918 RF IC Design (3 credit units)
This course will cover fundamentals of CMOS RFIC design. The course will start with basic electromagnetics like high-Q inductor design, then moves into device modeling and layout issues. It will examine in detail the primary CMOS RF subcircuits like LNAs, power amplifiers, fractional N synthesizers, mixers and filters. A design practice will be done using SpectreRF, with the passive components designed using Sonnet or equivalent modeling tool. The circuits will be laid out using Virtuoso and the parasitics will be extracted using Assura.
Prerequisites: EEN917 or instructor approval. EEN906 is helpful.
EEN 919 Advanced RF IC Design (3 credit units)
This advanced course will introduce designs of local oscillators and baluns, supporting mixed signal circuits like A/D converters and baseband filter-amplifier blocks. The course will include a significant design project that is typically a subsystem like a power amplifier or low-noise amplifier. The design will be done using SpectreRF, the circuits will be laid out using Virtuoso, and the parasitic parameters will be extracted using Assura.
Prerequisites: EEN918 or instructor approval. EEN906 is helpful.
EEN 920 (954) ASIC Design I (3 credit units)
The course will focus on ASIC design principle, consideration, and design implementation with logical design, verification, synthesis, and design analyses of function, timing, power, signal integrity and others. A design project with a front-end ASIC design flow will be assigned for practice.
Prerequisite: EEN905, EEN910 or instructor approval.
EEN 921 (958) FPGA Design (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the principle of Field Programmable Gate Array, various FPGA architectures, design flow, application advantages vs. limitations. Practicing with course projects, students will develop solid understanding and hands-on experience in this exciting digital design area.
Prerequisite: EEN905 or instructor approval.
EEN 922 Design Verification (3 credit units)
The course will introduce logical verification concepts, considerations and applications. Advanced algorithms applied to coverage, challenges of speed, scalability, verifiability, and skills and trade-offs will be discussed.
Prerequisite: EEN920 or instructor approval.
EEN 923 Design Analysis of Integrated Circuit (3 credit units)
The course will cover a wide variety of topics relating to analysis for integrated circuit design. It will emphasize state-of-the-art techniques and both the theoretical basis for the methods as well as the application of results to practical problems, including timing, power, noise, and effect of manufacture processing.
Prerequisites: EEN920 or instructor approval.
EEN 924 (922) Design for Testability (3 credit units)
The course will teach students the fault modelings including single stuck-at fault (SSF) and multiple stuck-at fault, fault equivalence and dominance, fault simulation techniques: serial, parallel and concurrent, testing algorithms for SSF and bridge fault, functional testing, PLA testing. Memory testing; and will also Introduce commercial tools and their capabilities.
Prerequisites: EEN920 or instructor approval.
EEN 925 (955) ASIC Design II (3 credit units)
The course will emphasize on back-end ASIC design implementation with floorplan, placement and routing, layout verification and parameter extraction, design for manufacture and post-layout analysis with consideration of timing-driving and power-aware layout. A design project with a back-end ASIC design flow will be assigned for practice. Prerequisite: EEN920 or instructor approval.
EEN 927 VLSI Design to Silicon (3 credit units)
The course will provide students on-hand chip design practice. Students will complete a full-custom chip design from circuit to silicon. With given technology and design spec, students will start their own designs from transistor-level schematic design and verification, to the completion of layout and layout verification, and run LPE and whole chip post-layout verification. The designs will be taped out for manufactory and chips will be packaged and tested.
Prerequisite: EEN911 or instructor approval.
EEN 928 (919) Low Power IC Design (3 credit units)
This course will cover Design consideration and techniques for low power IC design, Power estimation and analysis at different design stages, Techniques and tradeoffs in high performance and power critical IC design.
Prerequisite: EEN910 or instructor approval.
EEN 929 (914) VLSI System Design (SOC) (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the method, consideration and analysis of System on Chip design fundamentals. VLSI architectures, systolic arrays, self-timed systems, system verification, design flow and implementation will be covered. System C and/or System Verilog will be applied for practice.
Prerequisite: EEN913 or instructor approval.
EEN 930 (950) Quantum Devices (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the knowledge of principles and operational characteristics of modern semiconductor devices, especially nanometer scale structured semiconductor devices. Topics includes quantum transport, quantum interference, quantum noise, transport and optical properties of low dimensional semiconductor devices, quantum optical devices, high electron mobility transistors, single electron transistors, super conducting devices, and quantum transport in mesoscopic structures.
EEN 931 Nanotechnology I (3 credit units)
Nanotechnology is the field of fabrication, characterization and manipulation of nanometer scale objects. The course will analyze in details a step-by-step description of the equipment, facilities processes and process flow needed to fabricate small devices and structures, and cover fabrication challenges and break-throughs in semiconductor nanotechnology. Students will learn processing and manufacturing concerns including process control, contamination, yield, and processing interaction, and also practice design process flows to build micro- and nano-scale devices and systems.
Prerequisites: EEN930 or instructor approval.
EEN 932 Nanotechnology II (3 credit units)
The course will be a further study on quantum behaviors which mechanic, electronic, magnetic, optical and chemical properties open the door to a new domain of engineered nanostructures and nanodevices, with enormous applications in many aspect of life. Students learn small scale quantum phenomena, device fabrication, analysis and synthesis processes, instrumentation for characterization, integration of nanodevices and systems.
Prerequisite: EEN931 or instructor approval.
EEN 933 (962) Circuit Network Analysis (3 credit units)
The course will introduce linear graph concepts and definitions, graph matrices and Kirchhoff’s equations, matrix loop, node and cutset equations with generalized branch representation, and topological formulas for network functions and their application to computer-aided analysis.
EEN 934 (964) Computer-Aided Simulation of Electronic Circuits (3 credit hours)
The course will introduce DC and AC analyses of linear networks, DC analysis of nonlinear resistive networks, linear and nonlinear capacitors and inductors, circuit models for semiconductor devices, and the stability region of numerical integration algorithms.
Prerequisite: EEN933 or instructor approval.
EEN 935 (925) Introduction to MEMS Design (3 credit units)
The course will introduce MEMS design fundamentals, microfabrication techniques and analyze a variety of MEMS structures including switches, accelerometers and microcavities.
Prerequisite: EEN901, EEN906 or instructor approval.
EEN 936 Advanced MEMS Design (3 credit units)
The course will apply parametric design and optimal design to micro-electro-mechanical systems with an emphasis on design and micro-mechanical simulation.
Prerequisite: EEN935 or instructor approval.
EEN 938 (924) Signal Integrity of High-Speed Digital Circuits (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the issues in signal integrity of high-speed digital circuits, identify signal integrity problems; circuit analysis for transient signals in lumped and distributed circuits; reflection and crosstalk; analysis of coupled-line systems; current measurement processes for high-speed signals; and also the current design techniques, rules and procedures.
Prerequisites: EEN910 or instructor approval.
EEN 940 Introduction to Computer Vision (3 credit units)
The course will focus advanced techniques in image processing. Challenges of data collection with various sensors and cameras, high-level algorithms and real-time implementation will be discussed. 2D and 3D objectives recognition and reconstruction will be covered with practice.
Prerequisite: EEN908 or instructor approval.
EEN 941 Digital Signal Processing (3 credit units)
The course will focus an advanced techniques in signal processing. Stochastic signal processing, parametric statistical signal models, and adaptive filterings. Application to spectral estimation, speech and audio coding, adaptive equalization, noise cancellation, echo cancellation, and linear prediction.
EEN 942 Digital Image Processing I (3 credit units)
The course will be designed to introduce fundamental knowledge of basic image processing algorithms and systems. It will cover image acquisition, image data structures, images operations such as, geometric, arithmetic, logical convolution, transforms, calibration, correction, enhancement. Matlab will be used to help students grasp the basic skills of processing images on digital computers.
Prerequisite: EEN908 or instructor approval.
EEN 943 Advanced Digital Image Processing (3 credit units)
This course will be designed to introduce techniques and implement algorithms for advanced digital image processing. It will cover segmentation, shape and texture, Morphology, recognition and classification. And compression techniques, real-time image and video coding will be covered. Matlab is used to implement and test various image processing algorithms.
Prerequisite: EEN942 or instructor approval.
EEN 946 Design of Embedded Systems (3 credit units)
The course will focus on design methodologies and foundations; Platform-based design and communication-based design and their relationship with design time, re-use, and performance; Models of computation and their use in design capture, manipulation, verification, and synthesis; Mapping into architecture and system platforms; Scheduling and real-time requirements; Performance estimation; Simulation techniques for highly programmable platforms; and Synthesis and successive refinement. Prerequisites: EEN905 or instructor approval.
EEN 948 (966) Computer Network Systems (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the principles and techniques in computer network design and architecture. Topics will include OSI and TCP/IP reference models, packet switching, data link control, medium access control, routing algorithms and transport layer control. In addition, an introduction will be given for client-server model, LAN, WAN and network performance evaluation.
EEN 951 Computer Control Engineering (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the knowledge of block diagram & signal flow graph, modeling of electromechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic systems, state variable representation & transfer functions, matrix methods in state space, controllability, observability, and canonic form transformations, pole placement with state feedback and integral control, time domain analysis & stability criteria, root locus & method for output feedback design, and control system simulation.
Prerequisite: EEN908 or instructor approval.
EEN 952 Digital System Design (3 credit units)
The course will introduce the knowledge of frequency, stability, design in the frequency domain, introduction to computer system design and technique, sampling, A/D & D/A conversion, digital redesign, minimum norm and root locus design, state space design, and state observers.
EEN 953 Machine Learning (3 credit units)
The course will introduce Artificial intelligent theories, algorithms, and applications; Detection and analysis; Self-learning system; and Project of robot system design. Prerequisite: EEN908 or instructor approval.
EEN 958 Advanced System Design Using FPGA (3 credit units)
The course will focus on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) principles, consideration and implementations. It will emphasize on the use of FPGA developing system to implement a design specification.
Prerequisites: EEN905 or instructor approval.
EEN960 Parallel Computing (3 credit units)
The course will focus on parallel computing frameworks and techniques. It will cover cutting-edge techniques which including multiprocessing, multithreading, synchronization, cluster/MPI, cell computing, general purpose GPU (CUDA/STREAM), and stream computing. The course project will be issued for solving/benchmarking some computing intensive problems, such as Monte-Carlo simulations, partial differential equations, image processing, etc, using different parallel computing frameworks.
Prerequisite: EEN908 or instructor approval.
EEN 961 (967) Fundamentals of Communication Systems (3 credit units)
The course focuses on the analysis, principle, and application of the communication systems, both digital and analog. Students will learn Fourier techniques and their usages in communication systems, brief review of probability theories, concept of information theory, different modulation and demodulation techniques.
Prerequisite: EEN941 or instructor approval.
EEN 962 (965) Applied Linear Systems (3 credit units)
The course will introduce state equations, and their time and frequency domain solutions,methods for calculating state transition matrix, modes suppression and excitation, Z-transform and inverse transform sinusoidal steady state analysis and digital filtering,tability in linear time-invariant systems.
EEN 963(&966) Advanced Communications Systems (3 credit units)
The course will focus on up-to-date digital communication systems and technologies. It will cover introductory information and coding theory, baseband transmission systems, optimum receiver structures, intersymbol interference, equalization, various modulation and corresponding demodulation schemes and application of digital systems.
Prerequisite: EEN961 or instructor approval.
EEN 964 Introduction to Medical Image Systems (3 credit units)
The course will cover X-ray including CT, Ultrasound, Radionuclide, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The focus is on the physical principles, instrumentation methods, and imaging algorithms. The medical interpretation of images, and the clinical, research and ethical issues in medical imaging will also be included. Prerequisite: EEN942 or instructor approval.
EEN 966 Network Storage Systems (3 credit units)
This course will introduce distributed systems designed to offer access to storage resources over a network. It will cover network file system, network storage architecture, security issues in data transferring over networks, performance measurement, file service types, and file servers. In addition, topics of data redundancy, data throughput, Samba, and load balancing will be covered.
Prerequisite: EEN948 or instructor approval.
EEN 970 Introduction to Microwave Engineering (3 credit units)
The course will introduce high frequency theory, the basic performance, bandwidth, and manufacturing yield of RF and microwave networks. Students will learn Electromagnetic field theory and mathematical details; the applications of different matrices and their limitations; and the basis and use of Smith chart, and filter designs.
EEN 971 Introduction to Wireless Communication Systems (3 credit units)
The course provides an overview of wireless communication systems in use today as well as some of the emerging systems. It presents wide range of wireless applications, from cell phones to wireless local area networks (WLAN) to satellite communications.It will examine the pros and cons of wireless communication and describe both infrared and radio technologies. Finally it will survey the representative 2G, 3G and 4G cellular systems as well as representative WiFi WLAN systems.
Prerequisite: EEN970 or instructor approval.
EEN 972 Wireless Communication Networks (3 credit units)
The course will present wireless networking over a range of applications, from cell phones to wireless local area networks (WLAN) to broadband wide area network links to satellite. It will cover representative systems of the first, second, third and fourth generation cellular systems as well as those of WLAN and Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN). The coverage will focus on the MAC and PHY layers and will emphasize the recent and emerging systems. It will also introduce mobile IP and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
Prerequisite: EEN971 or instructor approval.
EEN 973 Wireless Communication Development (3 credit units)
The course will introduce wireless communication and briefly trace its history. It will cover the propagation loss and both long-term and short-term fading in wireless channel. It will describe in details how the time, frequency and antenna diversities can be used to effectively mitigate the effects of fading. Finally, it will cover the principle of cellular communications and introduce multiple access and interference management in the cellular environment.
Prerequisite: EEN971 or instructor approval.
EEN 974 Advanced Wireless Communications (3 credit units)
This course will build on the concepts covered in EEN 973. The topic covered here include: capacity of wireless channels, multi-user capacity and multi-user diversity, MIMO channel capacity and spatial channel modeling, MIMO receiver design. The concepts will be illustrated using examples from the WiMax and LTE systems.
Prerequisite: EEN973 or instructor approval.
EEN 975 High Speed Digital Systems (3 credit units)
The course will focus on the practical and theoretical aspects necessary to design modern high-speed digital systems, including Transmission line theory, cross talk, connectors, packages, and vias, modeling, SSN (Simultaneous Switching Noise), power delivery system, driver/receiver buffer modeling, clock distribution, digital timing analysis, design methodologies, and other advanced topics.
Prerequisite: EEN906 or instructor approval.

EEN 977 Green Energy (3 credit units)
The course will focus on solar energy, specially the principles and operational characteristics of modern solar cells. Main topics to be covered will be solar energy principles, principles of diode, solar cell, concentrated solar cell, thin film solar cell, multi-cell structure, power conversion (DC to AC, grid), power storage (battery, fuel cell, etc) and other green energy source (hydro, wind, biomass, etc) comparison.
Prerequisite: EEN901 or instructor approval.
EEN 995 Special Topics in Electrical Engineering (1-3 credit units)
The course will offer a relatively new subject that is not currently available in the catalog, but will be of great relevance to electrical engineering. It will consist of lectures, readings, homeworks, presentations and projects determined by the instructor.
EEN 996 Independent Study (1-3 credit units)
By arrangement with instructor. The course will be independent study of topics of special interest in electrical engineering under the direction of an instructor who is knowledgeable in the field. It will consist of readings, homeworks, tests, presentations and projects determined by the instructor.
EEN 998 Project (1-3 credit units)
By arrangement with project advisor. Student will conduct independent research of an approved topic in computer or electrical engineering, prepare a technical report, and defend it in front of a faculty advisor.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing
EEN 999 M.S. Thesis (6 credit units)
By arrangement with thesis advisor. A research will be expected toward the M.S. or PhD degree if thesis topic is approved. Students will conduct independent research in computer or electrical engineering, prepare a thesis, and defend it in front of a committee composed of a number of faculty designated by department chair.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing