Microelectronic and Communications Engineering MSc
18 Months Full-Time | September or January Start

In this module you will cover the broad topic of Microprocessors and Microcontrollers and how they are used in Embedded Systems. This will involve investigating processor architectures, operating modes and interfacing to peripherals. Examples of structures from current industrial vendors such as ATMEL, ARM, and Microchip will be explored and examined. You will consider the hardware design and development of embedded microcontroller systems, including implementations for controlling both internal and external interfaces and peripherals. Careful examination of Real-Time control issues, interrupts and microcontroller interactions will be analysed. This will allow you to be able to design the necessary hardware for microcontroller-based systems to meet a client’s specification.

To support the implementation of hardware designs software development of Embedded Microcontroller Systems will be employed looking at both low level assembly language/machine code programming through to C programming. The techniques employed will cover code generation procedures, structured programming techniques, reusable library functions and top down/bottom up programming methods.
All these techniques will be applied case studies based upon industrial research activities. Typical applications include:

These will cover areas such as temperature monitoring, algorithmic techniques; message passing systems and communication protocols.

Microcontroller technology has a broad range of applications within industry and research environments. Employing the use of a sophisticated ARM module exposes students to the diverse implementations, of such modules, and provides the key technical skills required by industry essential to modern digital and communication systems.

This module aims to further develop your capabilities in the areas of digital systems by means of high-level languages including C/C++ and Python.

The module starts by introducing digital system design and an overview of HDL tools. The concept of HLS and its application in high-level engineering design problems are then introduced, and several comparisons are carried out to highlight the difference and benefits of HLS. C/C++ programming language is presented as the HLS tool and you are given an overview of different data types, arrays, loops, and conditions in C/C++. You will learn the implementation of both sequential and combinational circuits in HLS as well as the concept of testbench and will learn how to apply the concept of testbench to real-world problems and how to simulate the real devices and digital components in your testbench. Through examples, you also will learn about FSM and design hierarchy and the benefit of clean code in a project. The HLS section then continues with the topic of parallelism, IP, and synthesis and concludes by looking at other methods of programming FPGA including SystemC, OpenCL, LabVIEW, and Matlab.
You will also cover techniques and tools that help you with developing your HLS code including:
1- Simulation
2- Debugging
3- FSM design tool
4- C/C++ standard library
This part of the module comes with a set of workshops specifically arranged to teach you how to use designated tools for simulation and programming a FPGA device using C/C++.

Another section of the module is devoted to programming FPGA using Python language also known as Pynq technology. You will start by understanding SoC and Xilinx Zynq family architectures. Then you will learn the fundamental requirements of Python for FPGA programming such as commonly used keywords and package management. The structure of Pynq is covered and implementing Python code in Jupyter is then explained through several examples and you learn how to apply your acquired knowledge to real world problems. You then will be briefly introduced to topics including digital signal processing (DSP), artificial intelligence (AL), machine learning (ML), software defined radio (SDR), and their common and cutting-edge applications in daily life and industry. The section concludes with looking at concept of embedded ARM cores in FPGA and running operating system (OS) on SoC.

This module aims to introduce you to the concepts, structure and organisation of wireless communications from a system point of view, thus illustrating the theoretical concepts and their application in practical scenarios. Wireless communication systems including the old analogue as well all digital technologies based on the optical and radio frequencies will be introduced. In addition, you will learn about the fundamental theoretical concepts for both radio and optical based wireless communications.

The module syllabus:

• Communication Regulation: Regulating authorities; standards organisation; frequency spectrum, and power usage.

• Radio Communication: System and subsystem specifications for radio based communication including antennas and propagation mechanisms; cellular wireless systems, traffic engineering; noise and interference; noise factor and cascaded systems; wireless channel; link budget calculations; frequency re-use; GSM; multi-path propagation.

• Optical Wireless Communications: Including the concept of indoor optical wireless systems; diffused and line of sight links; optical channel characteristics; noise sources; and optical path link budgets.

• Digital Communication: M-ary modulation and demodulation; coherent and non-coherent systems; signalling space and constellation diagrams; BER performance of different modulation formats; matched filter detection.

• Multiplexing and Multiple Access: TDM, FDM, TDMLA, FDMA and CDMA.

The syllabus will allow you to understand and pursue careers of communication system design and deployment within the telecommunications industry. This module together with other modules such as the high level system design and high level digital / analogue circuit design will give you the skills and expertise required within the telecommunications and computer network industries, as well as preparing you to do further studies in the this and relevant fields.

The module will provide you with the knowledge and skills in system design around two key themes of optical fibre and optical wireless communications. These are essential topics for modern telecommunications and cover advanced optical system designs as well as including industrial standards in both fibre and wireless systems. Optical fibre communications provides the backbone long-haul and medium range telecommunications that offers ultrahigh data transmission capacity whereas optical wireless communications is an emerging technology. This technology enables data transmission, either in the infrared or visible light bands, employing lasers or light emitting diodes (LED) for indoor and short range communications system.

The module syllabus covers the technical analysis of optical fibre and wireless communications both at a system and sub-system level. Performance calculations and design considerations are covered, specifically in the areas of optical transmitters and receivers, Careful examination of performance limiters will be defined and methods to offset them will be explored and analysed for optimum design. These limiters include such effects as modulation, noise, dispersion, modal transmission, multipath effects, diffusion, fog, turbulence, smoke etc.

System performance is developed and explored to maximise the capability of a communication channel covering such aspects as link budgets, multiplexing techniques, BER analysis etc. allowing the performance criteria being characterised to meet a system specification

With these developed skills and knowledge you will be able to undertake the design and analysis of a complex optical communication system, making judicial choices and improvements.

Within this module you will learn some of the key design and development skills needed for analogue electronics. The module will run through a number of fundamental building blocks of circuit design to enable you to design and develop from a high level abstraction in circuit design. The module supports this learning though the use of specific tools mixed in with key design theory along with practical lab based skills for the development and design of analogue circuitry using optimisation techniques.

Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Experimentation based on the use and application of an industry standard CAD package (for example, OrCAD or Mentor Graphics). Use of CAD tools to experiment with a number of circuit structures to derive their function and application inside of an abstract CAD environment.
Components, Bipolar device operation and modelling in association with passive components. The design needs for the layout of components, including some of the key parameters needed for modelling inside a CAD environment.

Analogue Design
Design of fundamental analogue cell structures, including switches, active resistors, current sources and current sinks. The design of current mirrors from basic to more advanced supply voltage independent mirrors, and voltage and current references. Integrated circuit level design of the building blocks of communications, for example, low noise amplifiers, mixers, phase locked loops and oscillators.

The module aims to develop a critical appreciation of the various principles underlying research that will enable you to discuss, evaluate and apply a variety of research approaches, methods and techniques to an engineering problem. It will also prepare you to consider, evaluate and apply the key knowledge and skills that underpin the professional practice of project management in an engineering context. In addition the broader key skills of knowledge and awareness of other none discipline areas are developed. The curriculum is delivered using two main thematic areas, which are delivered concurrently - Research and Professional Engineering business practice. In the Research theme the nature and practice of research are developed, you will use the university Library facilities to access information and make critical judgement of the information in the context of the subject specialism. The Professional Engineering Business practice theme introduces you to the practice of approaching all projects / research professionally being aware of planning, management and costs.

A detailed breakdown of the themes are:

Research:
- Generic research skills, information literacy. Appropriate literature search strategies, evaluation, reviewing and analysis methods.
- Specifying objectives which are specific, realistic, measurable under the SMART acronym, Endnote software

Professional Engineering business practice:
- Project Management, planning, time estimation and workloads, Gantt charts, CPM and PERT. Managing change, Managing budgets and realistic costing, MS project
- Legal, ethical or social issues in research and business, Risk analysis, classification and risk handling strategies
- Propose a professional business plan for research funding or any other funding

Academic skills when studying away from your home institution can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject area in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’.
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Discussing ethical issues in research, and analysing results.
• Describing bias and limitations of research.
• Developing self-reflection skills.