| The goal of this document is to give students interested in electrical engineering (EE) an overview of the different areas of EE, what courses to take, and when to take them. It is an unofficial document; also see the unofficial EE Program Advising Handbook. Students interested in EE should make an appointment with the EECS Advising Office (3415 EECS) by calling 763-2305 (9-12,1-5) or by emailing pvogel@eecs.umich.edu. Contact the Chief Program Advisor, Prof. Fred Terry, at eeadvisr@eecs.umich.edu. |
| EE can be divided up (roughly) into the 9 areas shown at right, grouped into three main areas: Systems, Circuits, E'magnetics. Click on one for more details, and for the courses in that area. |
EE SYSTEMS | CIRCUIT | E'MAGNETICS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control Systems | Circuits | Optics Engineering | |
| Communications | Solid State | Electromagnetics | |
| Signal Processing | M.E.M.S. | Music Engineering |
| MAIN AREA | Basic | SUB-AREA | Core | Upper | MDE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SYSTEMS | 216 | Control systems | 460 | 461 | None |
| Communications | 353 | 455 | 452 | ||
| Signal processing | 451 | None | 452 | ||
| CIRCUITS | 215 | Analog circuits | 311 | None | 413 |
| Digital circuits | 312 | None | 427 | ||
| SOLID STATE | 320 | Device fabrication | None | 420, 423 | 425 |
| Electronic devices | None | 421, 429 | 425 | ||
| MEMS | None | 414 | 425 | ||
| OPTICS | 230 | Optics & photonics | 330 | 334, 434 | 438 |
| ELECTROMAG. | 230 | Wave propagation | 330 | 411 | 430 |
| DESCRIPTION: Combining modeling, dynamics and feedback to make a system (electrical, mechanical, economic) to behave in a desired way, often in the presence of noise or uncertainty in the system model. Desired behavior: fast response time; tracking an input signal; rejecting disturbances in an input signal (active suspension or noise control); and robustness to modeling error in the system. |
UM Mobile Robotics Lab |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. Automobile emissions controls; active suspensions; cruise control 2. Data flow management in communications networks (part of TCP/IP) 3. Manufacturing systems (e.g., just-in-time); semiconductor fabrication 4. Aircraft and spacecraft inertial guidance; biological population control 5. Improving the stability of flexible structures in space (space station) 6. Robotics; industrial robots; walking robots (see the web link below). | NavChair |
| Employment: Automotive, Aerospace, Process Control companies. Web site: http://www.ieeecss.org/ (IEEE Control Systems Society) |
| Click here
for information about Professor Grizzle's walking robot! There is much collaboration between Depts. of EECS & Aerospace. |
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| DESCRIPTION: Sending messages and/or data from a sender to a receiver involves: (1) efficient coding of the signal;(2) efficient transmission methods; (3) efficient decoding methods for noisy signals;(4) efficient storage. Communications involves any and all of these issues and concepts. Wireless comm. is an example of the interdisciplinary nature of EE. It requires understanding of communications and radio propagation. |
satellite dish |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. Data networks; voice; faxes; modems; DSL; DBS 2. GPS; cellular phones; radar and outer space images 3. Wireless; landline; satellite; optical communication 4. Optical (CD-ROM & DVD; magnetic data storage 5. Pagers; Bluetooth; tower placement; multipath |
UM's W8UM amateur radio  |
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Employment: Telecommunications companies Professional web site: http://www.comsoc.org/ |
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| EECS radio station: Click here for info about amateur radio station W8UM in 4421 EECS! |
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| DESCRIPTION: A signal is either a continuous function of time (analog) or a discrete sequence of numbers (digital) arising from audio, biological, comm., or medical sources. Signal processing is the mathematical analysis & synthesis of signals for either: (1) compression, restoration, de-noising, classification, detection, filtering, or (2) enhancement of a feature. This may be performed using either DSP chips or with software. Matlab is used extensively in both teaching and research. | |
Dolphin click (courtesy Prof. W.J. Williams) | |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. MP3,JPEG,MPEG,MRI,PET,radar,sonar,Dolby noise reduction 2. Audio, speech (speaker identification), music analysis & synthesis 3. Filtering or separating noisy signals or images in many applications |
| Employment: Texas Instruments, Motorola, medical imaging companies Professional web site:www.ieee.org/sp (IEEE Signal Processing Society) |
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| DESCRIPTION: Circuits are both analog (continuous voltage) and digital (binary voltage). Analog circuits are both individual devices (transistors and chips) and the connections (circuits, networks) connecting them. Power, physical sensors, switches, displays, and antennas must all be connected to an analog circuit. Digital circuits are logic gates (such as NAND gates) and memory circuits. Digital circuits perform binary arithmetic and other operations in computers. Mixed-circuit-type devices include both analog and digital circuits in them. Mixed circuit devices: camcorders; most wireless communication circuits. |
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1. Design, simulation, and physical realization of analog processing circuits that amplify, filter, mix, oscillate, and convert A to D 2. Construction of circuits using discrete components (transistors) 3. Design, simulation, CAD layout of digital circuits and systems, including digital logic circuits (adders, multipliers, and PLA's) and memory circuits, including SRAM, DRAM, and ROM 4. Modeling of circuit devices (transistors, diodes, transformers) 5. VLSI: design, analysis, implementation of large digital circuits |  |
| Employment: Motorola, Qualcomm, Agere, Agilent, Analog Devices, HP, Intel, National Semiconductor, Sun Microsystems. EECS 427 (VLSI) is very good preparation for working for Intel UM's EECS Department has had much success in placing alumni. |
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| Professional sites:http://sscs.org &
www.mrc.uidaho.edu/vlsi/ |
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| DESCRIPTION: Physics-based semiconductor device properties, such as: transistors, FETs, solar cells, LEDs, semiconductor lasers. Solid-state EE is a material application of quantum physics. The fabrication lab requires wearing a spacesuit-like outfit! |
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| APPLICATIONS: 1. Fabrication of microelectronic semiconductor devices 2. New areas of nanoelectronics & molecular electronics | SSEL clean room |
| Employment: Intel, IBM, Motorola, Texas Instruments Professional web site: http://www.ieee.org/society/eds/ Click here for Solid-State Electronics Lab homepage. |
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No, it's not Area 51... |
It's the EECS SSEL |
| DESCRIPTION: Design and fabrication of microdevices and microcircuits; also exploration of new microelectronic, microphotonic and MEMS devices, where "MEMS"=Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems. The fabrication lab requires wearing a spacesuit-like outfit! |  |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. Fabrication of ever-faster semiconductor device chips 2. Fabrication of ever-tinier microdevices (e.g., motors) |  |
| Employment: Intel, IBM, Motorola, Texas Instruments Professional web site: http://ewh.ieee.org/tc/nanotech/ Click here for Solid-State Electronics Lab homepage. |
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| DESCRIPTION: Optics involves the interaction of light with matter, ultrashort pulse generation, interferometry, laser physics, optical frequency conversion in nonlinear media, laser spectroscopy, propagation and modulation of light in fibers, & scattering. |  |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. Fiber-optic communications;spectroscopy;lasers;leds;displays 2. Holography; imaging through tissue; diffraction-limited imaging 3. Laser surgery; contactless testing of high-speed circuits; clocks 4. X-ray and terahertz sources; night vision; isotope separation |  |
| Employment: Automobile and telecom companies making any of these: Fax machines, copiers, solar converters, scanners, displays, CDs, LEDs, Flat panel displays, semiconductor circuit testing, NIST, night vision. |
ablation |
| Professional web sites: optics.org and www.osa.org and www.i-leos.org Click here for the homepage for UM's Center for Ultrafast Optical Science. |
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| DESCRIPTION: Generation and measurement of waves; modelling their interactions with objects & media, spanning VHF to millimeter wave range. This includes: antenna design, RF circuit design, RF MEMS, analytical and numerical analysis of scattering and propagation, inverse scattering for target iden- tification & imaging, next-generation instrumentation for active & passive remote sensing of the earth and other planets in our solar system. | |
RadLab anechoic chamber | Earth-observing satellite |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. Signal propagation modelling for wireless communication; 2. Antenna & waveguide design for wireless communication; 3. Imaging radars and radiometers for planetary exploration; 4. Detection of buried objects (land mines, pipes, tunnels); 5. Monitoring environment for weather prediction models; 6. High-speed circuit signal propagation and interference; 7. Generation of waves (transducers) for medical imaging. |  |
| Ann Arbor employment: General Dynamics (formerly Veridian)/ERIM. National employment: Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, National employment: Motorola, Qualcomm, Harris, RF MicroDevices. Government employment: NASA, all DoD, Lincoln Labs, Sandia Lab. |
| Professional sites: www.ieeeaps.org/ and www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/grss Click here for the homepage for UM's Radiation Lab (the "Rad Lab"). |
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| DESCRIPTION: EE has always played a central role in recorded music,since recording and playback have been electrical since wax cylinders went out of style. Electronic synthesis and processing (Dolby noise reduction) is common. Analysis of music, as a signal, into components (individual instruments). |
| APPLICATIONS: 1. Recording of music (CDs and other storage media) 2. Processing of recorded music (Dolby, echo effects) 3. Music analysis (vocal and instrument audio analysis) 4. Music synthesis (vocal & instrument audio synthesis) |
| Employment: Music recording studios and labels Web site: www.music.umich.edu/departments/pat/ |
| Click here for the homepage for the joint Engineering & Music interdisciplinary music engineering program. Many applets and demos of EE research into music. |
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