IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 54, NO. 2, MAY 2011 173

Guest EditorialMicroelectronic Systems Education

T HE SEMICONDUCTOR market has made staggering im-provements over the last 30 years. Following Moore’s

Law, devices are ever smaller, thereby allowing for dense cir-cuits and higher levels of system integration on a single sub-strate. These advances have opened the doors to the integrationof analog and digital components on single substrates (com-plete systems on a single chip), highly efficient programmablesystems, and the use of multiple core processors. As a result,the industry has been able to reach the demands of the marketfor increasingly more powerful handheld applications, such asthe new multimedia cell phones and netbooks, portable med-ical equipment, and gaming consoles. Educators in this field arefaced with the daunting task of getting students prepared for de-signing systems with ever-increasing complexity, tighter designspecifications, and faster time-to-market.

This special issue on Microelectronic Systems Educationpresents many teaching methods used to help students preparefor careers in the microelectronic systems industry. The breadthof topics in the papers is as broad as the field itself. In additionto the classic field of integrated circuits, subfields in the papersinclude programmable areas, such as field-programmable gatearrays (FPGAs) and embedded systems, and large system de-signs, such as system-on-a-chip and systems with multiple coreprocessors. Many educational objectives to improve learningin these difficult areas are presented, including: 1) simula-tion tools to enhance experiential learning; 2) active learningtools to improve student learning while maintaining coverage;3) interdisciplinary and integrative approaches to teaching;4) hands-on experiences across multiple courses, outside the

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TE.2011.2131270

traditional laboratory setting, and with high school students;5) technical literacy for non-majors; and 6) assessment toolsfor foundational skills.

Papers for this special issue were first reviewed and presentedat the IEEE Microelectronics Systems Education (MSE) Con-ference, which is held in the US on odd years. The goal of thisconference is to improve undergraduate and graduate educationin the design, implementation, and testing of microelectronicssystems. Top papers from this conference were invited to writean expanded version, with an emphasis on the educational com-ponent and assessment of that component, for submission tothis special issue. All papers went through the typical reviewprocess required by IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION. Thisspecial issue contains the top papers that went through both re-view processes.

I would like to thank all of the people who were instrumentalin creating this special issue. I appreciate the receptiveness ofthe Editor-In-Chief, Charles Fleddermann, who gave us the op-portunity to produce a special issue from MSE conference pa-pers. The Editorial Administrator, Kirsty Mills, has improvedevery paper submitted to her and been a valuable resource for methrough this process. Finally, this issue could not have come to-gether without all of the reviewers who provided excellent con-structive criticism to improve each paper and the authors whospent their valuable time creating and improving these high-quality papers.

TINA A. HUDSON, Guest EditorDepartment of Electrical and Computer EngineeringRose-Hulman Institute of TechnologyTerre Haute, IN 47803 USA(e-mail: hudson@rose-hulman.edu)

Tina A. Hudson (S’91–M’00) received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Tech-nology, Atlanta, in 1995 and 2000, respectively.

She is an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Tech-nology, Terre Haute, IN. She teaches in the areas of analog and digital circuits and systems, computer architecture, and very largescale integration (VLSI). Her research interests include the development of real-time neuromuscular models using integrated cir-cuits and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices, linear threshold circuits, and methods of teaching analog and digitalintegrated circuits and MEMS devices that encourage higher cognitive levels of learning.

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