Introduction

The following describes the general objectives of each subject that makes up the Mastsrs' Degree. For more information on each subject, see the following link: Course Programs [1]

Compulsory Courses

The engineering of analogue and digital electronic systems (SEAD)

Electronic Circuits and Systems Laboratory (LCSE)

In this subject the knowledge of digital electronics is applied to the practical design of a digital system of medium-high complexity. For this reason the student has to be able to achieve a physical implementation from physical specifications and following the design methodology of synchronous digital circuits.

The emphasis of the laboratory is placed on the use of CAD tools for the design of complex digital circuits using the VHDL hardware description language. Taking advantage of this scenario other significant practical aspects are dealt with related to the design of complex digital systems. The validation of the development is a very important task which must be carried out by means of simulation, as happens in professional environments. Throughout the course the student has to carry out several practical tasks by applying the different phases of a classic design methodology:

The study of CAD design tools
The specification in VHDL and simulation techniques
Synthesis and implementation on FPGA

More specifically, the objectives of the subject can be described as follows:

Experience the development of complex digital systems
Develop the capacity for analysis of a specification
Use professional digital synthesis and simulation tools
Understand the importance of synchronous digital systems
Learn techniques for the debugging of hardware systems through simulation
Suitably plan the development steps for a complex system
Deal with all of the development phases, up to the final testing of a real FPGA

Methodology, Quality and Personal Abilities (MCHP)

The objective pursued is to offer a first contact with this wide range of subjects, key in the development of the professional life and which is usually relegated in the training of engineers.

As a result of the variety of the subjects that will be studied, just a panorama of each of them will be provided, yet placing a certain emphasis on a relevant point.

The bibliography and documentation presented must serve as a starting point for later personal training work which must continue throughout the professional life.

Those students that take this course will obtain a training sufficient to be competent in:

Describing the phases of a development and exploitation methodology of a system, as well as the management of projects.
Selecting and applying a methodology suitable for any project.
Remembering the regulations and models for quality assurance as well as the tools available.
Describing the environmental management system and its evolution.
Describing tools for the analysis of investments and strategies and financing mechanisms.
Analyzing investment alternatives for the development of a business project.
Describing the management tools for intellectual and industrial property as well as the technical reports on patents as important levers to innovation and competition.
Looking for and recovering documental information for the development of any R&D&I work.
Evaluating the importance of the sources of documents and selecting those that are more interesting for publishing their work.
Drawing up documents and preparing presentations that allow them to disseminate the results of their research work.

Advances in the Engineering of Electronic Systems (Seminar)

Abilities:

To know the most recent advances in the state of the question as regards electronic circuits and systems.
The capacity to apply the advances in research and innovation in electronic systems.

A brief description of the content: The seminar presents recent advances in the field of electronic circuits and systems through the use of two types of conference:

Talks given by invited guest speakers who will talk on topics regarding very recent research, not necessarily covered in the Masters’ Degree courses.
Talks given by the different groups in charge of teaching in the Masters’ Degree.

Professional Itinerary courses M4

Embedded systems (SEMP)

Explain the different types of component (hardware and software) that make up an embedded system.
Apply selection criteria of the different components, from the restriction of the final application, including aspects such as temporization, consumption and cost.
Analyse the different architectural alternatives for the development of software for embedded systems, as well as the basic analysis techniques of planning capacity, assignment of priorities and the management of shared resources.
Apply the crossed development software techniques and tools, as well as the validation and debugging techniques, including the design for the testing, simulation, emulation and basic concepts of formal verification and synthesis.
To be able to design and complete embedded system based on a microprocessor, carrying out a balance with the engineering criteria of the different design alternatives.
To be able to evaluate the pros and cons of each approximation of the design of an embedded system.

Analogical Systems (SEAN)

The general objective of the course is for the attendee to acquire a wide and, at the same time, complete vision of the aspects of an analogue design that will allow him/her both to design analogical circuits and systems without too much ingenuity and understand the working of a large part of the electronic equipment used in communications and instrumentation. In particular, he/she will be able to design with Operational Amplifiers, whose features nowadays allow designs with working frequencies close to GHz, both with the most recent Operationals “current-feedback” and those with traditional voltage-feedback Operationals whose features improve day by day. As regards the “non-lineal” part of the analogical process, he/she will be able to use any type of analogical processor based on analogical multipliers (balanced modulators, phase comparators, logarithmic and exponential convertors, etc.) without depending on specific catalogue circuits, yet knowing their features, capabilities, and limits.

Therefore, the first part of the course is centred on the professional design of transfer functions (gains in general) of a purely electric type, where the input and output signals are voltages or currents. However, the second part of the course takes on a totally new vision in which transfer functions appear whose input and output signals are already of any type. An example is the gain of a simple KD phase comparer whose output is a proportional voltage of the difference between two signals, which is its input signal (radian) whose nature has nothing to do with either the power or the electric current. As a second example, the low-pass response (similar to that of a well-known simple R-C circuit) of an FM demodulator designed with the previous phase comparator and a VCO. The student will see that the gain in power of the R-C (V/V dimensions) and that of the aforementioned FM demodulator (V/Hz dimensions) are formally equal, which helps in the building of a wide mental structure and will be able to take the basic knowledge beyond that which the student has not yet previously developed.

Microelectronics (MCRE)

This subject allows knowledge to be acquired relative to the design of "full-custom systems”. We provide the future designers of hardware or software systems or micro-electronic engineers with a vision ranging from the design aspects of the systems to the physical process, passing through its circuits and blocks components, mainly centred on CMOS technology, which is the most used nowadays for the design of application circuits. A basic introduction to the structures and technological processes necessary in the design work of integrated circuits is also guaranteed. The emphasis is placed on the presentation of methodologies that facilitates the handling of the complexity inherent in the design of these systems.

At the end of this class, the student will have designed and validated his/her own chip. He/she will also understand the impact that the different design options have on speed, power, reliability and cost and will also be able to formulate the compromises necessary to fulfil the initial design restrictions. Options for the design of interconnections, data routes, memories and specific use will also be dealt with. The student must be able to apply the current design methods and standard tools of the industry both for synthesized blocks and on request. The students, working in teams, will start from a complex specification in order to achieve a detailed design of the circuit, being able to present oral and written reports on his/her work.

Electronics Systems Lab. (LAEI)

The objective of the subject is to give a practical vision of the problems associated with the analysis, design, and experimentation in systems, devices or applications for intelligent environments, as well as a critical vision in the resolution of engineering problems with a systemic and multidisciplinary focus. It is based on the PBL (Project Based Learning) methodology: the student must develop a realistic project related to technologies or applications of intelligent environments.

Professional Itinerary courses M5

Semiconductor technologies (TS)

The objective of the subject is for the students to acquire a basic knowledge of the most important technologies that are applied to semiconductor materials used mainly in the area of nano and microelectronics. The main effects that the said technological processes have on the optical and electrical properties are explained as its application in optoelectronic devices.

Microsystems and Nanoelectronics (MSIS+NANO)

From a content point of view, the pedagogical objectives can be grouped together in four main blocks:

To know and revise a general panorama of microsystems and nanoelectronics, from the point of view of potential applications and the present market, with special emphasis on application in intelligent environments
Revision of microsystems technology, including the description of the electronic materials and their processing, micromechanization and microfluids.
Another objective of the subject is for the students to acquire a basic knowledge of the fundaments of nanoscience, the nature and properties of the different microstructures, and the techniques used in their manufacture and characterization in nanoelectronics.
To study the different types of physical, optical, chemical and biosensory microsystems, and nanoelectronics and nanosystems.

The studying of the processing and conditioning of the signal in microsystems, nanostructures and nanosystems, and the use of sensor networks, etc. are dealt with in other Masters’ Degree subjects.

From the aptitude point of view, the objectives of the subject are to promote the capacity to reflect and relate content; the search for, drawing up of and presentation of information; and the teamwork.

Optoelectronic systems (OPTO)

The objective of the course is to develop the basic knowledge to be able to understand the behaviour of the basic optoelectronic components that semiconductors use: the light emitting diode, laser diode, photodetector, and solar cell. For this, it starts from the analysis of the origin of optical processes in semiconductors, its application in micro and nanostructures, to get to understand the basic technology present in these devices and the description of its figures of merit. Finally, the application of these devices will be studied in applications of great current interest and social use such as environmental and biophotonic sensors, and its use in medical applications.

Professional Itinerary courses M6

Tools for electronic design (DASE)

This course is dedicated to offering a panorama of the different CAD tools involved in each of the design phases of a VLSI system, by studying the different types, algorithms involved, characteristics, etc. Special emphasis will be made on the way of handling (algorithms and data structures) the amount of information (functional and geometrical) that resides in a complex VLSI system. It is not a course on circuits, but how to represent and deal with the problems inherent in their design. It will begin by dealing with the classic problems associated with the physical design phase of VLSI systems, such as the location and connection of blocks. These subjects will introduce a large part of the concepts used later when dealing with other problems related with the tracing of integrated circuits, such as the edition and verification of layouts, compacting, estimation of area and delays, etc.

After that, it will go on to study other types of tools that currently allow the designer to work at much higher levels of abstraction. This is the case of logic optimization tools, both combinational and sequential.

Finally, hardware/software co-design, design methodologies System-On-Chip, specification and modeling, considerations of consumption, destination architectures, partitioning, the generation of interfaces, high-level synthesis, the generation of code, estimation, co-simulation and verification. It will also deal with subjects of the greatest degree of abstraction in the most descriptive of ways

Microelectronics (MCRE)

This subject allows knowledge to be acquired relative to the design of "full-custom systems”. We provide the future designers of hardware or software systems or micro-electronic engineers with a vision ranging from the design aspects of the systems to the physical process, passing through its circuits and block components, mainly centred on CMOS technology, which is the most used nowadays for the design of application circuits. A basic introduction to the structures and technological processes necessary in the design work of integrated circuits is also guaranteed. The emphasis is placed on the presentation of methodologies that facilitates the handling of the complexity inherent in the design of these systems.

Advanced digital architectures (ADA)

The main pedagogical objectives of the subject are as follows:

To know the implementation alternatives of electronic design: generic architecture and architectures oriented to the algorithm
To evaluate the design options for a specific application through commitment: efficiency, cost, consumption and flexibility.
Use the basic design concepts of digital architectures to improve processing efficiency: segmentation, parallelism, parallel processing, etc.
To be able to optimise the features of specific systems by using examples based in the area of the digital treatment of the signal.

Professional Itinerary courses M7

Person-machine dialogue systems (SDPM)

This course is dedicated to the study of the different modules that intervene in the interaction system or person-machine dialogue. Starting with an introduction to the dialogue system and its problems, it goes on to deal with the fundamental modules that make it up, describing its working, the most adopted research alternatives in order to achieve an optimum system and the performance and problems associated to each one.

In each of the modules, it will start from a basic level and will go further into it up to describing the most advanced algorithms and techniques with which the most robust and reliable systems are achieved.

Pattern recognition (REPO)

The main objective of this subject is to provide the students with a sound knowledge in pattern recognition techniques and optimization techniques, which serve to support and the application of a wide range of scientific and technical disciplines.

More specifically, the skills that we aim to develop among the students of the subjects can be described in the following way:

To apply the techniques for the automatic classification and inference for decision making, the extraction of information and the design of complex systems.
To draw conclusions from experimental data, whatever the field of work of the researcher.
To optimize classifiers, it being of interest to highlight the relationship between the choice of the functions of the density components, the number of parameters to be estimated involved in this choice and the amount of data available for the task, selection of the relevant characteristics and the reduction in the dimension of the experimental vectors.
To critically evaluate the results of the systems and select the best method of classification and learning of its experimental data.
To apply optimization techniques based on stochastic, heuristic and evolutionary methods.
To integrate the knowledge coming from different sources into the management in an optimum way in accordance with the incomplete information available: state of the system, temporal context, multimodal and personal

Biomedical imaging systems (SIB)

The subject will present advanced systems for the obtaining of biomedical images, mainly as systems to aid medical diagnosis and the evaluation of therapies. In this subject the student will know techniques for the acquisition of biomedical images that show not only the anatomy but also provides information on the working or biological activity of a tissue or organ. Especially, it will deal with the molecular imaging techniques that, by means of different markers, allow molecules or genes to be identified. Finally methodologies and algorithms of intelligent processing will be presented which allows information relevant to each application to be obtained.

Free Choice Courses

Neurosensorial and bioinstrumentation engineering

The main objective of the subject is the study of the nervous system and sensorial systems, with a view to their simulation and integration into electronic systems, including some neurosensorial engineering applications such as prostheses and multisensory interfaces. Bio-inspired systems will also be studies, such as artificial systems that emulate or imitate some of the capacities of living beings.

On the other hand, some systems of biological systems will also be studied with the main objective of aiding the medical diagnosis of certain pathologies. Basically, it looks at two of the most important systems, such as the heart and brain, even though many of the techniques will be extrapolated to other organs.

Power and Control

The objective of this subject consists of showing the student the different electronic power convertors, relating its topologies with the mission to be carried out: AC/DC conversion, DC/DC conversion or DC/AC conversion as well as how to give them the suitable tools to analyse the stability of the system and develop the necessary control system. The teaching method will be developed by means of theory classes, amplified with simulations and practical assemblies which will let them see how the knowledge acquired may be used in these and other applications.

Advanced Instrumentation

Current instrumentation techniques are presented in this course which will allow the design, integration and use of instrumental systems both in the industrial environment and in the scientific. For this reason a series of subjects will be developed which deal with the different focuses that may be used at the time of dealing with an instrumental system of a certain complexity, paying special attention to the development of the possibilities of automation and interconnection on the models developed.

Likewise, a necessarily brief section is included on advanced and intelligent sensors which aims to be a presentation of the real situation and the way that it is hoped to follow in the near future.

Finally, a section is included in which it is taught how to make a first processing of the values obtained through the suitable instrumentation and how to estimate the quality of the measurements, both from the aspect of their mere numerical processing and from the point of view of the quality of the instruments guaranteed by the processed pertinent to calibration and traceability.

Consequently, the specific objectives of this subject are:

To introduce the student to the systems for the acquisition of multimeasured data.
To understand the need for complex systems and the design of solutions adapted to each case.
To develop the different methods and protocols for the integration of instruments in such a way that it is possible to select and design complex instrumentation systems.
To learn the philosophy and techniques of Virtual Instrumentation, its environments and architectures.
To know, select and use intelligent sensors and networks of sensors.
To learn to process the results of the measurements already evaluating their quality, both from the point of view of the numerical results and from the point of view of the reliability of the instruments.

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Courses objectives