Sweden’s University of Skövde has enhanced the quality of its engineering courses and prepared for the future with Altium technology.
"Altium Designer's ease of use makes it possible for students to develop real designs and order PCBs during the course, making them more attractive to companies when they graduate."
- Stefan Ericson
Lecturer in Electrical Engineering
School of Technology and Society
University of Skövde
Sweden
As one of Sweden’s younger, growing universities, the University of Skövde offers a dynamic educational and research environment in the focus areas of Humanities and Informatics, Technology and Society, and Life Sciences. Part of the university’s ongoing development has been the introduction of advanced electronic engineering courses through their School of Technology and Society. The electronic engineering courses at the university are designed to equip graduates with up-to-date knowledge and experience in the latest techniques and technologies involved in electronic product design. To fulfill this need and best equip their graduate students for the future requirements of industry, the University of Skövde chose Altium electronic product design software for their electronic engineering courses.
Key challenges
With the ever-increasing speed of advancement in electronic design technology, engineering students face the demanding task of embracing both the latest changes and the techniques used to implement those technologies. The engineering software used for this must cater for the newest design methodologies, but also offer the students an easy-to-learn and intuitive system to complete their course work. Graduate students at Skövde face relatively short course durations for their electronic design projects and need to embrace all of these engineering facets while completing an advanced electronic project.
During the course students are also required to complete their electronic project in its entirety, from initial concept right through to a prototype level ready for testing. Project PCBs are professionally manufactured, and while the student designs are often complex, the project itself must also be completed to a professional level while complying with strict course deadlines. This places high demands on both the quality and usability of the engineering software employed during the course.
Meeting the challenges
In order to meet these disparate challenges, University of Skövde’s School of Technology and Society chose Altium Designer’s design system to replace their existing engineering software. Altium Designer's advanced design capabilities, intuitive design interface, professional features and up-to-date technology provided the university with a sophisticated electronics design platform for the needs of engineering students and staff. Students use Altium Designer's fully-integrated system to develop their designs, simulate the results then create professional-level PCBs layouts ready for manufacture.
The results
Both engineering students and the staff at the university have found that Altium Designer's integrated features and ease of use has dramatically improved the quality and value of the university’s electronic engineering courses. Professional-quality PCB designs are produced faster and more easily, students spend less valuable course time learning the software, better designs are produced within the allotted course deadlines, and students have more time to thoroughly test their completed projects.
Recent student projects include a QPSK data transceiver, a very compact 200W class-D amplifier and a professional-standard Bluetooth communications module for the Khepera robot. This sophisticated design consumes far less power than the original radio module, can communicate with several robots rather than one, and incorporates a microwave PCB plus a four-layer circular board with components on both sides.
Engineering staff at the university have recognized the future in electronics design through the recent introduction of FPGA programming into the curriculum. Fortunately, the university is well prepared for these developments thanks to Altium Designer's integrated FPGA design capabilities and the school’s purchase of Altium’s reconfigurable FPGA development platforms – the low-cost Altium LiveDesign Evaluation board and the device-independent NanoBoard with plug-in FPGA daughter boards.
About the university
Established in 1977 and located in central Skövde – an historic city situated between the two largest lakes in Sweden; Vänern and Vättern – the University of Skövde is a young and dynamic university that offers high-quality education plus unique cross-disciplinary programs and courses. The university has three schools, attracting over 7300 student each year from across Sweden, as well as from abroad.
The School of Technology and Society completes research and educational courses in the subject areas of technology, social psychology and economics. For their electrical engineering courses, they chose Altium electronic product design software to best equip graduate students for the future requirements of the industry.
By investing in multiple Altium Designer licenses, the School of Technology and Society provides electrical engineering students with a complete PCB design solution that has all the capabilities needed to take any board-level design project from concept to completion. When combined with Altium’s NanoBoard, an FPGA-based nano-level development board, students have the opportunity to interactively design and debug FPGA-based hardware in real-time.
For more information about the University of Skövde and the School of Technology and Society, visit www.his.se