Undergraduate Education in
Electrical Engineering at Stanford
Bruce Wooley
June 2003
BAW 6/03_1
Changing Education in EE
• Two factors are driving a major restructuring of undergraduate
education in EE
– Expansion of the field, with a shift in emphasis toward
systems
– Changing student backgrounds
• EE at Stanford
– Undergraduate education is ultimately driven by results of
graduate research, here and elsewhere
– Begin with a broad overview of the Department and its
strategic vision
BAW 6/03_2
Stanford EE Department
• 54 tenure-line faculty members (44.5 billets)
– 30 Professors, 14 Associate Professors, 10 Assistant Professors
– 20 joint faculty (with CS, AP, MgS&E, MSE, Geophysics, Statistics)
• 8 research faculty members (3 joint faculty)
• 97 declared undergraduate students
– UG admissions through University
• 890 graduate students (443 PhD students)
– 15% of Stanford’s graduate students
– Graduate admissions through Department
• 63 PhD, 228 MS and 39 BS degrees in 2001-02
BAW 6/03_3
Research in EE
CSL:
Computer architecture / VLSI, core system software,
networking, information management, graphics, CAD
ISL:
Communications/coding, signal processing, control,
information theory, optimization, image processing, medical
imaging
ICL:
Semiconductor devices and technology, technology CAD,
integrated transducers/MEMS, mixed-signal and RF IC
design, digital signal processing, neuroengineering
SSPL: Optoelectronic devices and systems, microoptics, scanning
microscopy, acoustic sensors and transducers, ultrafast
optics, nanotechnology, quantum electronics
STAR: Wireless and optical communications, ionospheric and
magnetospheric physics, remote sensing, planetary
exploration, signal processing
BAW 6/03_4
What is Electrical Engineering?
• Department is attempting to define what it means to be an EE in the 21st
century
– EE includes almost anything “electrical engineers” decide to do
– Much of what we do is increasingly defined by applications
• At its core, EE is the discipline that provides the technology for sensing,
processing, storing and communicating information
• The future of EE is being impacted by:
– growth in the importance of information technology
– increasing breadth of interactions with the physical sciences
– cross-discipline convergence and the importance of
interdisciplinary activity
– increasing levels of complexity
– increasingly rapid change
BAW 6/03_5
A Changing Environment
• Changing student backgrounds
– Engineering art is less “visible” than for previous generations
– Incoming students more likely to have “taken apart” the
software that runs a system than the physical implementation
• Increasing complexity of systems and tools
– Changes the kind of research that is both interesting and
possible
– Can “raise the bar” for what qualifies as “good” research
– Increasing emphasis on finding new applications of technology
• Compression of time between theoretical concepts and
commercial realization
– What is “long term”?
– Many challenging problems are not only intellectually
interesting, but also result in useful artifacts
BAW 6/03_6
Emerging Research Themes
• Exploiting progress in hardware and information technologies to
collect more data about the world
• Extracting meaning from large amounts of data
• Controlling large distributed systems
• Broadening the interface to the physical sciences beyond solidstate electronics to include photonics and biology
• Extending strength in semiconductor circuits and technology
upward to support systems-on-a-chip, downward to understand
nanoscale devices and laterally to encompass inexpensive,
large-scale electronics
BAW 6/03_7
“Recent” EE Faculty Appointments
– Balaji Prabhakar (systems & control)
– Andrea Goldsmith (wireless communications)
– Dawson Engler (software systems)
– Nick Bambos (network architectures & performance)
– Olav Solgaard (applications of microelectonrics technology)
– Ben Van Roy (dynamic programming & control)
– Bernd Girod (digital imaging & video)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
BAW 6/03_8
Krishna Shenoy (neuroengineering)
Shanhui Fan (photonic crystals)
John Pauly (medical imaging)
Yoshio Nishi (micro-fabrication technology)
Christos Kozyrakis (computer & systems architecture)
Jelena Vuckovic (photonic crystal structures)
Joe Kahn (photonic systems)
Diffractive Optical MEMS – O. Solgaard
•
MEMS technology enables diffractive optical elements that can be dynamically
reconfigured on ms timescales
•
Diffractive optical MEMS are used in a multitude of device architectures and
applications
Phased arrays
Gires-Tournois
for scanning
interferometer for
and free-space
filtering, dispersion
laser comm.
compensation, and
coding in WDM optical
fiber systems
Adaptive optics
Diffractive optical filter
output
coupler
Outgoing
light
for synthesis of optical
spectra in correlation
spectroscopy
control in laser
communications,
DMD
array
ophthalmology, and
Dh
hmax
BAW 6/03_9
mirror for wavefront
Optional lens to bring
the far field closer
astronomy
Microinstruments for RNA-i Experiments – O. Solgaard
•
Double-stranded RNA (ds-RNA) is a powerful tool for genetic studies
•
ds-RNA inhibits the expression of the corresponding gene through a process know as RNA
interference (RNA-i)
•
We are building microinstruments for studies of development in Drosophila embryos based on
RNA-i
– Microinjectors for precise injection in specific locations with low damage
– Integrated sensors for improved speed, reliability, and calibration of injections
– Microfluidic systems for embryo handling, positioning, diagnostics, and sorting
20 mm
Injector array for parallel injection.
The Pyrex substrate has channels to
bring ds-RNA to the microinjectors.
BAW 6/03_10
Detail of microinjector
Drosophila
embryo
Injection into drosophila
embryo. The flow rate is 10
pl/s for a total injected volume
of 300 pl in 30 seconds.
Theory of Micro and Nano-Scale Photonics – S. Fan
Displacement Sensor
Propagation in Photonic Crystals
f = 0.361 c/a
f = 0.360 c/a
PMD Compensator
Photonic Crystal Waveguide
w
wa
BAW 6/03_11
Neural Control of Prosthetic Devices – K. Shenoy
Neural signals to move real arm
Visual
Motor
Neural prosthetic
experiments with
behaving monkeys
(algorithms,
circuits and
systems)
Spinal cord
injury
120 spikes/s
Estimate desired
arm movement
Prosthetic
Arm
1 second
Control signals to move prosthetic arm
BAW 6/03_12
E
H
Cue
Plan
Re
Batista, Buneo, Snyder, Andersen (1999) Science 2
Shenoy Group
Optics in Internet Routers – N. McKeown
Professors Mark Horowitz, Nick McKeown, David Miller, Olav Solgaard
Motivating Example: 100Tb/s Internet Router
External 160Gb/s
Connections
Optical links
Optical
Switch Core
625 160Gb/s Linecards
Research Problems
1.
2.
3.
4.
Novel architectures with optical switch and no scheduler.
160Gb/s Packet buffers using hybrid SRAM/DRAM.
Fast Internet address lookup (one packet every 2ns).
Low-cost, low-power parallel optical serial links.
BAW 6/03_13
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Direct-attach of optics onto silicon.
Low-power integrated drivers for bumped optical transmitters.
Integrated optical modulators.
Novel MEMs switches.
Drive circuitry for MEMs switches.
Polymorphic Computing Architectures – C. Kozyrakis
• Goal: next-generation computing substrate
– Performance and power/energy of ASIPs
– Programmability and flexibility of general-purpose CPUs
• Technical approach
– Modular design based on simple processing cores
• Simple to design, scalable, no long wires
– Support for multiple programming models
• Thread-level, data-level, and instruction-level parallelism
– Configurable on-chip memories
• Can use as caches, local memories, specialized buffers, etc
– Allow software to create the optimal processor configuration for
each application
• Faculty: Horowitz, Olukotun, Kozyrakis
BAW 6/03_14
Possible Future Areas of Emphasis
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
BAW 6/03_15
Embedded systems and signal processing
Semiconductor devices and circuits
Sensing, including biosensing, and actuation
Biology / EE (e.g. biophotonics)
Distributed asynchronous control
Radio, radar and optical remote sensing
Experimental wireless systems
Data mining and large scale optimization
Information storage systems
Internet-scale systems
Teaching Electrical Engineering
• Traditional curriculum follows a “sequence” structure
– Results in “delayed gratification”
– Fails to address the need for broad competency required
by the rapid expansion of the field
• Need for courses that introduce the “ideas and methods” of a
subject
– Response to two trends: an increasing knowledge base
and the move to higher levels of abstraction
• Undergraduate curriculum
– Beginning a major restructuring of the undergraduate EE
curriculum
BAW 6/03_16
Changing the Undergraduate Curriculum
• Driven by the information revolution and changing student
backgrounds
• Students don’t build radios anymore
– Most haven’t built anything physical
– But they have a much better software background
• More comfortable in the virtual world
– Early courses need to provide physical intuition
– Used to an environment with abundant information
• Little tolerance for delayed gratification
• Some unique constraints
– Undergraduates admitted to the University
– Large number of required units
• 68 in EE and engineering, 45 in math & science, 48 general
education requirements
BAW 6/03_17
Current Undergraduate EE Core
Intro to
Electron
EM
141
BAW 6/03_18
Intro Ckts
101
Electr 1
111
Sig & Sys
102
Electr 2
112
Sig Proc
103
Elec Ckts
113
Dig Lab
121
Anal Lab
122
EE Undergraduate Core
• Traditional core is too large and too linear
• Too long to get to the fun stuff
• Need to:
– Motivate students to “sample” different areas
– Emphasize fundamental principles that cut across areas
– Include motivating examples for all material in the core
– Take advantage of the students’ familiarity with a “virtual”
environment
– Arouse interest in and curiosity about “hardware”
– Broaden students’ appreciation of system issues
– Familiarize students with different levels of system
abstraction
BAW 6/03_19
Goals of the New Undergrad Curriculum
• Alter focus of initial classes to emphasize applications
– Make the classes more interesting
• Decrease the longest chain in the core by making the
requirements more parallel
– Enable more options in class selection
• Include lab components in the core classes
– Provide immediate utility of material, leverage comfort with
virtual world (simulation) and grow coupling to physical world
• Include digital systems content in the core
BAW 6/03_20
New Undergraduate EE Core
Intro to
Electron
Engr
Physics
Circuits
Lab
BAW 6/03_21
Sig & Sys
1
Electron
1
Dig Sys
1
Sig & Sys
2
Electron
2
Dig Sys
2
Specialty Areas in EE
Current specialty areas:
New specialty areas:
• Digital Systems
• Computer Hardware
– Hardware
• Computer Software
– Software Systems
• Controls
• Electronics
• Fields and Waves
• Signal Processing and
Communications
• Signals, Systems and Control
– Control
– Signal Processing / Commun
• Electronics
– Analog and RF
– Digital Electronics
• E&M
– Field and Waves
– Solid State and Photonics
BAW 6/03_22
What’s Next?
• Begin to focus on the lower division curriculum
– Retain rigor while making EE more appealing for today’s, and
tomorrow’s, incoming students
• Reconsider how and when math and science are taught
– Need to provide more motivation
– Are the traditional sequences relevant to modern electrical
engineering?
– Can math and science be taught as needed throughout the
four year program, depending on the area pf specialization?
BAW 6/03_23