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Sustainable Energy and Low-Power Design

Achieving sustainability occurs by reducing the amount of energy consumed during manufacturing and throughout the lifetime of a device. Semiconductors play a key role in sustainable energy by enabling clean, renewable energy sources, and improving energy efficiency. As companies continue to push the boundaries on new features and functionality in small mobile devices, significant increases in hardware complexity, processing power, and overall power consumption are inevitable. The demand for improved battery life and energy-efficient devices are thus becoming more critical, and likely to rise as the usage of consumer electronics and connected devices grows.

Low-power design is a series of techniques that reduce power consumption, leading to longer battery life, lower maintenance costs, and greater sustainability. New advances in semiconductor technology, improved design automation, and artificial intelligence have led the way to greater energy-efficient hardware and software applications. For example, leveraging ultra-low-power microcontrollers within consumer electronics helps to reduce power consumption and enhance performance. Likewise, the use of advanced low-power wireless protocols is transforming the Internet of Things industry with longer battery life and sustained connections. Power harvesting technologies that capture and store energy from ambient sources such as the sun, temperature, movement, and wind are now being used to power devices.

Many industry leaders are also taking proactive steps in launching sustainability programs to counter the impact of semiconductor fabrication, such as water recycling and conservation, using renewable energy in manufacturing processes, and development of pollution prevention techniques.

In this track, you will learn various techniques in low-power design aimed at reducing the overall power consumption of an integrated circuit and creating more sustainable energy. This cutting-edge curriculum will prepare you with a holistic view of power, energy, and thermal properties of semiconductors and electronic devices to optimize power, achieve sustainability goals, and reduce impact on the environment.

Program Details

Core Courses

Select at least six courses from the following list:

• CE 303 Advanced Digital Design
• CE 355 ASIC and FPGA Design
• CE 357 Introduction to VLSI CAD
• CE 361 Computer Architecture I
• CE 387 Real-Time Digital Systems Design and Verification with FPGAs
• CE 391 CMOS VLSI Circuits Design
• CE 392 VLSI Systems Design Projects
• CE 393, 493 Advanced Low Power Digital and Mixed-signal Integrated Circuit Design
• CE 395, 495 Sustainable Internet of Things
• CE 452 Advanced Computer Architecture I
• EE 375, 475 Machine Learning: Foundations, Applications, and Algorithms

Elective Courses

Select up to six courses from the following list:

• ECE 326 Electronic System Design I
• ECE 327 Electronic System Design II
• ECE 335, 435 Deep Learning Foundations from Scratch
• ECE 381 Electronic Materials: Properties and Applications
• ECE 384 Solid State Electronic Devices
• ECE 389 Superconductivity and its Applications
• ECE 395, 495 Introduction to Smart Grid Systems
• ECE 395, 495 Metamaterials and Nanophotonic Devices
• ECE 435 Deep Learning Foundations from Scratch
• ENTREP 474 NUvention: Energy
• ISEN 421 Scaling Sustainable Technology
• ISEN 422 Electrify Everything: Beneficial Electrification, Electric Vehicles, and Beyond
• ISEN 431 Advanced Topics in Electric Technologies: Storage and Microgrids
• MAT_SCI 381 Energy Materials
• MAT_SCI 382 Electrochemical Energy Materials and Devices
• MAT_SCI 387 Solar Energy Conversion
• MAT_SCI 451 Advanced Physics of Materials
• MAT_SCI 452 Selected Topics in the Solid State
• MAT_SCI 455 Solid State Physics of Nanomaterials
• MAT_SCI 456 Functional Metamaterials