Postgraduate Courses

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Realize the importance of optics and photonics in both research and daily life.
• 2.
  Identify and critically discuss the limits of validity and applicability of the different ray optics and wave optics equations.
• 3.
  Define and explain the propagation of light in various media.
• 4.
  Apply wave optics and understand the concept of polarization, coherence and interference.
• 5.
  Define and explain the physics underlying light generation, detection and light-matter interaction.
• 6.
  Choose, derive and apply suitable models to predict and analyze the response of basic photonic components.
• 7.
  Solve with the necessary literature practical and theoretical problems within the field of optics and photonics.
• 8.
  Use the tools, methodologies, conventions of physics to formulate explanations and validate their ideas.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Grasp the basic physics and properties of Group IV and III-V semiconductor materials, optical processes, and electronic carrier processes.
• 2.
  Understand the junction theory of optoelectronic devices, and lasing and gain theory.
• 3.
  Master the operation principles of light-emitting diodes, laser devices, and photodiodes used for advanced optoelectronic applications.
• 4.
  Identify and describe material and device specifications for high performance optoelectronic devices.
• 5.
  Identify and describe the challenges in designing and manufacturing high performance optoelectronic devices.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Grasp the basic physics of film growth, etching, lithography, and implantation.
• 2.
  Understand the vacuum technology and the techniques for deposition, etching, lithography, implantation, characterizations.
• 3.
  Understand the control parameters of fabrication processes and their effects.
• 4.
  Understand the functions and applications of typical micro- and nano-devices.
• 5.
  Identify and describe the challenges in fabrications processes of typical micro- and nano-devices.
• 6.
  Identify and describe device specifications and fabrication processes for typical applications and some novel applications.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Use fundamental device terminology to describe semiconductor behavior and operation.
• 2.
  Explain how diodes, BJTs, MOS capacitors, and MOSFETs function as basic building blocks in electronic circuits.
• 3.
  Predict how key physical parameters qualitatively change device I-V/C-V characteristics.
• 4.
  Interpret standard device test results and identify operating regions and characteristic features.
• 5.
  Identify device nonlinearity from I-V/C-V characteristics and explain its impact on circuits.
• 6.
  Connect device parameters to VLSI-level outcomes such as speed, power, and integration limits.
• 7.
  Outline baseline VLSI technology directions and compare their motivations using introductory-level metrics and trade-offs.
• 8.
  Present device concepts and analysis clearly in concise technical writing and presentations.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Explain and use the language and core concepts of modern semiconductor devices with clarity and confidence.
• 2.
  Predict how changes in key MOSFET design parameters affect device characteristics and performance trends.
• 3.
  Apply scaling concepts to analyze short-channel effects, leakage mechanisms, and their implications for advanced CMOS technologies.
• 4.
  Explain major reliability and degradation mechanisms and interpret their impact on device lifetime and operation.
• 5.
  Perform basic device characterization and extract key parameters from I-V/C-V and related measurement data.
• 6.
  Select and calibrate appropriate device models to match measurement results by choosing relevant parameters.
• 7.
  Evaluate advanced device architectures and emerging technology trends using standard metrics and trade-off analysis.
• 8.
  Relate device performance to circuit- and system-level behavior, and communicate findings effectively through technical reports and presentations.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Explain fundamental semiconductor and silicon physics concepts that govern device operation.
• 2.
  Describe the operating principles of major devices like PN junctions, MOS capacitors, and MOSFETs.
• 3.
  Interpret I-V and C-V measurement results and identify key operating regions and trends.
• 4.
  Select appropriate measurement/characterization methods for extracting target material and device parameters.
• 5.
  Extract key device and circuit parameters from provided real data.
• 6.
  Analyze non-idealities and defect/charge effects using characterization evidence.
• 7.
  Evaluate how extracted parameters and non-idealities impact device performance and technology trade-offs.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Have a deep understanding on the general concepts of analog circuit design.
• 2.
  Grasp the methods to analyze analog circuits.
• 3.
  Develop the capability to design the basic analog building blocks.
• 4.
  Benchmark the performance of various analog circuit topologies.
• 5.
  Understand the general considerations and approaches to complex analog design.
• 6.
  Present their design thinking scientifically in a circuit design project.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Have a deep understanding of the general concepts of clock generation.
• 2.
  Grasp the methods to derive circuit specification from system requirement.
• 3.
  Analyze operation principles and design considerations of oscillators, frequency synthesizer and clock data recovery.
• 4.
  Benchmark the performance of different clock generation integrated circuit topologies.
• 5.
  Develop the capability to optimize the performance of circuits and systems.
• 6.
  Present their design methodologies in a circuit design project.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Have a deep understanding on the general concepts of wireless systems and RFIC design.
• 2.
  Grasp the methods to derive circuit specification from system requirement.
• 3.
  Analyze operation principles and design considerations of RF building blocks.
• 4.
  Benchmark the performance of different RF circuit topologies.
• 5.
  Develop the capability to optimize the performance of circuits and systems.
• 6.
  Present their design methodologies in a circuit design project.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Understand the history of integrated optics, the status quo of industrial applications, and future roadmaps.
• 2.
  Learn to build simulation models for photonic integrated devices and circuits.
• 3.
  Master photonic integrated circuits layout for mask preparation and design approaches.
• 4.
  Understand the fabrication steps and challenges of photonic integrated circuits.
• 5.
  Learn to perform experimental data analysis, model calibration, and fabrication tolerance analysis.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Have a good understanding on the operating principles of high-speed data link systems.
• 2.
  Understand the main requirements and challenges of integrated circuits design for high-speed links.
• 3.
  Develop the capability to design the high-speed circuit blocks.
• 4.
  Benchmark the performance of the integrated circuits in high-speed data links.
• 5.
  Present the design considerations scientifically in a circuit design project.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Design and layout transistor-level logic circuits.
• 2.
  Identify the reason of failure and provide a solution to meet the timing/power constraints while given a digital module that fails timing and/or power constraints.
• 3.
  Design the corresponding module in Verilog and automatically generate the layout using EDA tools while given a digital module’s functionality.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Understand mechanisms and trends of mainstream memory technologies.
• 2.
  Analyze and design basic memory bit-cells including 6-transistor SRAM, 1-transistor-1-capacitor DRAM, and floating gate FLASH transistor.
• 3.
  Analyze and design the peripheral circuits including the sense amplifier and array-level organization for the memory array.
• 4.
  Understand the pros and cons of emerging memory technologies such as STT-MRAM, PCM, and RRAM compared to the mainstream technologies.
• 5.
  Understand the principles of novel hardware design and applications enabled by emerging memory technologies

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Recognize the importance of IC verification.
• 2.
  Explain the verification methods and the good practice.
• 3.
  Assess the pros and cons of formal methods and testing.
• 4.
  Use Boolean satisfiability solvers and model checkers in verification tasks.
• 5.
  Apply the abstraction methods in formal verification and analyze their efficiency.
• 6.
  Use automatic test pattern generation and apply the principles of design-for-test.
• 7.
  Develop the suitable verification strategy for their own IC projects.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Gain the understanding of integrated circuits design flow.
• 2.
  Explain the purpose of each backend design step.
• 3.
  Abstract and formulate the problems in physical design tasks.
• 4.
  Illustrate a reasonable framework for a specific physical design problem.
• 5.
  Design algorithms to solve specialized physical design tasks.
• 6.
  Analyze the pros and cons of different algorithms in physical design problems.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Evaluate processor designs using a quantitative approach.
• 2.
  Use simulation and modeling tools to evaluate the performance and efficiency of processors.
• 3.
  Master the concepts in advanced memory hierarchy.
• 4.
  Explain the techniques in advanced computer architecture design.
• 5.
  Understand parallelism, multiprocessor, warehouse scale and domain specific computers.
• 6.
  Analyze and discuss current research trends and challenges in the field of computer architecture.
• 7.
  Design and implement architecture optimizations to solve practical problems.
• 8.
  Present and write reports to describe the processor architecture design and findings thoroughly.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Understand the history of optical interconnects, the status quo of industrial applications, and future roadmaps.
• 2.
  Learn the characteristics, system framework, and performance parameters of optical communication systems.
• 3.
  Master the principles and basic characteristics of optical waveguides and key optoelectronic devices.
• 4.
  Understand optical interconnect systems and link performance.
• 5.
  Learn about the latest developments in photonic integration technologies and optical interconnects in chip package.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Have a good understanding on the concepts of hardware accelerator design.
• 2.
  Understand and analyze the recent trends and challenges of AI accelerators design.
• 3.
  Analyze the techniques used in accelerators designed for AI applications.
• 4.
  Use modeling and simulation tools to design hardware accelerators for DNN based applications.
• 5.
  Benchmark the performance of different accelerators.
• 6.
  Present their designs for AI accelerators.
• 7.
  Extend their knowledge to accelerators designed for other applications.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Write parallel programs using shared memory and message passing programming models.
• 2.
  Use simulation and modeling tools to evaluate the performance and efficiency of parallel computers.
• 3.
  Master the concepts in parallel computer architectures.
• 4.
  Explain the techniques in parallel computer architecture design.
• 5.
  Understand parallel processing, multiprocessor, cache coherence, and interconnection networks.
• 6.
  Analyze and discuss current research trends and challenges in the field of parallel computer architecture.
• 7.
  Design and implement parallel processing optimizations to solve practical problems.
• 8.
  Present and write reports to describe the parallel computer design and findings thoroughly.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Explain the architecture, programming model, and execution behavior of modern GPUs.
• 2.
  Develop GPU kernels using CUDA/ROCm and apply thread- and block-level parallelism.
• 3.
  Analyze and optimize memory access, thread synchronization, and performance bottlenecks.
• 4.
  Design GPU-accelerated solutions for applications such as convolution, reduction, SpMV, and large-scale inference.
• 5.
  Communicate technical results effectively through presentations and written reports.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Explain the architecture and operating principles of modern FPGA devices.
• 2.
  Apply HLS tools to implement and optimize hardware kernels in C/C++.
• 3.
  Design domain-specific FPGA accelerators for applications such as DNNs, LLMs, graph mining, and databases.
• 4.
  Analyze and optimize memory hierarchy, dataflow, and loop structures for high-performance accelerators.
• 5.
  Present technical results clearly through written reports and oral presentations.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Obtain a holistic view of embedded system design.
• 2.
  Describe the interactions between different components in embedded systems.
• 3.
  Apply common modeling approaches to describe a simple system.
• 4.
  Understand different techniques in embedded system design.
• 5.
  Evaluate different design choices on performance, cost, and power consumption.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Recognize the current research trend in Microelectronics.
• 2.
  Explain the theories and applications in the chosen topics.
• 3.
  Apply the methodologies and techniques to real problems in the chosen topics.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills in the selected topics related to microelectronics.
• 2.
  Apply systematic research methodologies in the selected topics.
• 3.
  Communicate the problems and findings effectively in presentations and scientific writings.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Identify engineering significances in microelectronics.
• 2.
  Engage critical thinking skills that are essential for microelectronics research.
• 3.
  Advance technologies in microelectronics.
• 4.
  Demonstrate effective communication skills.

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• 1.
  Identify scientific and engineering significances in microelectronics.
• 2.
  Engage critical thinking skills that are essential for microelectronics research.
• 3.
  Apply systematic research methodologies to advance theories, create methodologies, or innovate technologies in microelectronics.
• 4.
  Demonstrate effective communication skills in reporting scientific findings.