CHIPS (Circuit Hardware Integration for Processing and Systems)
Integrated circuits are incredibly complex, with up to tens of billions of transistors in a single chip. While a whole sub-field of ECE deals with the physics and fabrication of the devices themselves (see the E2P focus path), integrated circuit designers start with the devices and their models and take advantage of this incredible available complexity to build integrated circuits for computation, communication, and sensing.
To develop these ICs, students will learn the foundations of circuits and systems, including both digital and analog circuit design in the microelectronics class. Students can learn more about specific types of ICs, whether they be for digital computation (Intro. to VLSI design, FPGA design, ASIC/SOC design), for wireless communication (RF circuit design and wireless systems and analog integrated circuits), or how electronic signals move can be manipulated and controlled (Microwave engineering, electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic energy conversion). There are also a set of courses that teach how those electronic signals can be structured in a way that enables robust communication at both short and long ranges (communications and wireless communications).
Gateway Course
This course is a good entry place for the CHIPS focus path
Constriction of electronics circuit design to specifications. Focuses on computer simulation, construction, and testing of designed circuits in the laboratory to verify predicted performance. Includes differential amplifiers, feedback amplifiers, multivibrators, and digital circuits. Three lecture and three laboratory hours.
Prerequisite: ECE 2600 (Electronics)
Elective Courses
Analyzes the basic laws of electromagnetic theory, beginning with static electric and magnetic fields, and concluding with dynamic E&M fields; plane wave propagation in various media; Maxwell's Laws in differential and integral form; electrical properties of matter; transmission lines, waveguides, and elementary antennas.
Prerequisite: APMA 2130 (ODE) & ECE 2300 (Applied circuits) & ECE 2200 (Applied Physics or PHYS 2415 equivalent)
Analyzes the principles of electromechanical energy conversion; three-phase circuit analysis; magnetic circuits and nonlinearity; transformers; electromagnetic sensing devices; DC, synchronous, stepper, and induction machines; equivalent circuit models; power electronic control of machines, switching regulators, Class D amplification. Laboratory, computer, and design exercises complement coverage of fundamental principles.
Prerequisite: ECE 2660, ECE 3209 or PHYS 2415
Design and analysis of wireless communication circuits. Topics covered include transmission lines, antennas, filters, amplifiers, mixers, noise, and modulation techniques. The course is built around a semester long design project.
Prerequisite ECE 2700 (Signals and Systems)
Analyzes the measurement and behavior of high-frequency circuits and components; equivalent circuit models for lumped elements; measurement of standing waves, power, and frequency; use of vector network analyzers and spectrum analyzers; and computer-aided design, fabrication, and characterization of microstrip circuits.
Corequisite: ECE 5260 or instructor permission.
Digital CMOS circuit design and analysis: combinational circuits, sequential circuits, and memory. Second order circuit issues. Global design issues: clocking and interconnect. Use of Cadence CAD tools. Team design of a significant VLSI chip including layout and implementation.
Prerequisites: ECE 2600 (Electronics)
What are the most desirable characteristics of a digital system? What makes a computer powerful, is it its hardware or its software? What are the essential differences between a software program and programmable hardware? How can you build hardware that can adapt, and why would that be a useful feature? How do you judge a digital system: do you want the fastest, the least expensive, the smallest, the lowest power? How do you make sure that your work has impact? The goals for this class are to answer these and other related questions so that you can pursue successful technical careers by becoming lifelong learners, technical experts, great team players, eager to embrace the challenges brought by the quick changes (new technologies, new theories, new paradigms, new languages) that characterize the computer engineering field.
Topics include the design and analysis of analog integrated circuits; feedback amplifier analysis and design, including stability, compensation, and offset-correction; layout and floor-planning issues associated with mixed-signal IC design; selected applications of analog circuits such as A/D and D/A converters, references, and comparators; extensive use of CAD tools for design entry, simulation, and layout; and the creation of an analog integrated circuit design project.
Prerequisites: ECE 2700 (Signals and Systems)
Explores the statistical methods of analyzing communications systems: random signals and noise, statistical communication theory, and digital communications. Analysis of baseband and carrier transmission techniques; and design examples in satellite communications.
Prerequisite: (APMA 3100 or MATH 3100) AND (ECE 2700)
This is a survey course in the theory and technology of modern wireless communication systems, exemplified in cellular telephony, paging, microwave distribution systems, wireless networks, and even garage door openers. Wireless technology is inherently interdisciplinary, and the course seeks to serve the interests of a variety of students.
Design and analysis of passive microwave circuits. Topics include transmission lines, electromagnetic field theory, waveguides, microwave network analysis and signal flow graphs, impedance matching and tuning, resonators, power dividers and directional couplers, and microwave filters.
Prerequisite: ECE 3209 or instructor permission.
What our students say ECE 4332: Introduction to VLSI design
"Intro to VLSI Design. Being able to combine knowledge from Electronics / Solid-State for implementing circuits from DLD and architecture from CSO1/CSO2 was not only fun, but also gave great insight into how both circuit level design choices can easily propagate up the layers of abstraction to enable novel applications, but also how changes at the application/software level trickle down to affect power/area constraints for such circuit design. Being to experience that in real time on a team with other engineers for designing a large complex circuit was an invaluable experience for synthesizing my undergraduate experience."
- Student from ECE 4332: Introduction to VLSI design
ECE 4660: Analog Integrated Circuits
" For those interested in AI Hardware, I would also highly recommend taking Computer Architecture: Hardware Accelerators to provide an important perspective from the CS-side for motivating hardware accelerator development and showing how developments at the system and architectural level eventually led to the modern hardware accelerator design paradigms present in AI Hardware today, in addition to other research in reconfigurable computing and application-specific circuits. While it's certainly more research and discussion based, the class also has a number of small programming assignments introducing students to CUDA and a final project component that could lend itself easily to doing something more ECE related. Prof. Skadron has a wealth of knowledge about the subject, so for students who are really passionate, it's a great class for understanding the wider perspective of computer architecture."
- Student from ECE 4660: Analog Integrated Circuits
ECE 5260: Microwave Engineering
"The microwave engineering class is the most exciting, interesting, and intensive class that I've taken at UVA. High-frequency circuit effects are among the more confusing concepts for me - I have no regular interaction with them - so getting to play with the simulators and test my designs in the lab (especially when we tried to correct our designs for parasitics) was really rewarding. Microwave lab is where transmission lines first started to make intuitive sense, instead of just being mathematical constructs. It was a wild ride, but I have never learned so much in a single class. I felt like every day I would come out of lecture somewhat bewildered by the complexity of it all, but the quick reinforcement from homework and lab designs would always clear things up." - Student, John Berberian
ECE 4332: Introduction to VLSI Design
" Introduction to VLSI Design. It was an extremely challenging course but had very interesting course material on a topic that isn't covered in other courses."- Student from ECE 4332: Introduction to VLSI Design
CHIPS FAQ
Essentially it comes down to a difference in what abstraction on the hierarchy from atoms to applications you are working in. E2P is focused on materials physics and engineering, device fabrication, and device modeling. These are the people who you might find working in the iFab cleanroom. CHIPS takes those models for those individual devices and builds circuits and systems hardware with them. They make the computer chips that power everything from data centers, to energy harvesting sensor nodes, from WiFi transceivers to RADAR systems. Robotics and Embedded Systems then adds in software to enable smart and connected solutions, that exist simultaneously in the cyber and physical worlds, interacting with the world around them, while communicating and coordinating with each other through the cloud.
Some Faculty in this area:
You are likely to see these faculty as the instructors for elective courses. Click on a name to visit a website and read about the cool research being done in this area at UVA!
N. Scott Barker
N. Scott Barker received the B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Virginia in 1994 and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1996 and 1999 respectively.
Adam Barnes
Adam Barnes earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 1992, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1995. In 2019 he moved to the University of Virginia to teach the next generation of engineers. He is an ASEE member and interested in advancing engineering and science in both rising engineers and the general public.
Steven M. Bowers
Steven M. Bowers received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA, in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in millimeter- wave circuits and systems from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, in 2009 and 2014, respectively.
Benton H. Calhoun
Benton H. Calhoun received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Computer Science from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, in 2000. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, in 2002 and 2006, respectively.
Mircea R. Stan
Mircea R. Stan is teaching and doing research in the areas of AI hardware, Processing in Memory, Cyber-Physical Systems, Computational RFID, Low Power, Spintronics, and Nanoelectronics.
Robert M. Weikle, II
Bobby Weikle's research focuses on millimeter-wave and terahertz electronics, applied electromagnetics, integrated antennas, novel high-speed devices and low-noise sensors for applications ranging from astronomy and spectroscopic sensing to metrology.
Xiaoxuan Yang
