Electronic devices and integrated circuits pervade our everyday lives from smart gadgets, flexible screens, IoT sensors, artificial intelligence, data storage and clean energy, which are designed and manufactured in Singapore. Today, Singapore has one of the most diverse semiconductor industries in the Asia Pacific. Semiconductor technologies form the bedrock of Singapore’s electronics sector, contributing to about 31 % of the total manufacturing output and 17 % of the manufacturing workforce.

This specialisation in Advanced Electronics (AE) will introduce students to industry practices related to semiconductor fabrication, chip manufacturing, IC design and prototyping. This is especially relevant to students who aspire for a career in our nation’s semiconductor industry, which forms a vital node in global electronics network, and is underpinned by industry leaders. Students interested in embedded system and prototyping, could also explore start-up opportunities which are seeking talents specialized in firmware.

Requirement

Students in the AE Specialisation are required to complete a minimum of 20 Units consisting of AE core (2 mandatory courses) and AE electives.

AE Core Courses

EE3408C teaches fundamental operational amplifier or operational transconductance amplifier design.  Students will be exposed to various fundamental building blocks, such as current mirror, active load, bandwidth analysis, and etc.  In addition, students will be exposed to commercial EDA software (Cadence).

Electronic devices are the building blocks of electronic systems, and through EE3431C, students will learn how semiconductor devices work at a fundamental level. We begin with physical foundations, device concepts are then introduced, and the operational principles of key semiconductor devices are explained.  This is the module to take for students who want to understand how transistors work, or who want to understand the foundations of all modern electronics. Topics covered include: structure of solids; dielectric materials; physics of semiconductors; metal-semiconductor contacts; PN junction, bipolar transistors, and field-effect transistors.

AE Elective Courses

EE4218 enables students to understand and be able to design complex embedded system.  Embedded system has played an important role in modern electronics, provide programmability and functionalities to many electronic systems.  After completing the module, students would be able to map the system specifications into executable computational model employing hardware description language (HDL) and implement it on field programmable gate array (FPGA) using commercial EDA tools.

EE4415 introduces students to modern digital integrated circuit design.  It covers different logic families and explains the modern digital design flow, covering from Verilog HDL to logic synthesis, employing commercial EDA tools, such as Synopsys.  Modern challenge in ASIC design will also be discussed.

EE4407 introduces various fundamental circuit building blocks, ranging from oscillators, mixers, filters, power regulators, power amplifier and etc.  These building blocks allow students to build complicated electronic sub-systems.

EE5507 built upon EE3408C and covered more advanced topics on analog integrated circuit design.  It consists of two main parts.  The first part covers supply independent biasing, high swing cascode, opamp compensation, and various high performance OTA architectures.  For the second part, circuit applications such as oscillator, sample-and-hold, comparators, and analog-to-digital converters are discussed, showing their architecture and key performance parameters.

EE4409 covers the physical side of IoT. Major IoT related topics include IoT and Microelectronics, Laser Radar & Driverless Car, MEMS, Sensors (pressure, temperature, flow, strain), and Wearable Energy and Power Sources.

EE4435 equips students with the physical foundation of metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices and the background for understanding end applications making use of transistors and memory devices (e.g., flash memory, phase change random access memory, etc.)  Students will gain an understanding of the principles of operation of of such devices, which will be useful for careers in wafer fabrication, foundries, design houses and in the microelectronics industry generally.

EE4436 lays the foundation of the hardware platform to enable internet of things (IoTs). EE4436 teaches students the knowledge of how to make nano-electronic and photonic devices and systems, such as CPUs, memories, sensors, etc. Fundamentals for various key process modules are covered, including materials growth, dopant incorporation, etching, lithography, interconnect formation, etc.  Students would be trained in theories, simulation projects, as well as some simple hands-on experiences.

EE4437 Photonics technology is everywhere around us and advances in photonics have impacted our everyday lives, e.g., LED lighting, flexible OLED displays in mobile phones, ultra-thin and curved TV. More recently, it has emerged as a key enabling technology in the Internet of Things (IOT). Photonic elements such as lasers, detectors, modulators, imaging sensors and displays allow devices to sense and analyze information about their surroundings, as well as communicate with one another. EE4437 covers the basic principles and operations of various photonic devices (LED, lasers, modulators, detectors) which play an important role in IOT technology.

EE4438 covers the theory, operating principles, and function of solar cells and photovoltaic modules. Major topics covered are the status of the PV market, the properties of sunlight, properties of semiconductors, efficiency limits of solar cells, carrier properties in semiconductors, currents in p-n diodes in the dark and under illumination, computer simulation of solar cells, characterisation of solar cells, technology of silicon wafer solar cells, technology of thin-film solar cells, properties of interconnected solar cells, technology of PV modules, and the characterisation and testing of PV modules.

Note: NUS policy on Specialisation Double-counting rules