A WWW facilitated rapid system prototyping class

A Rapid System Prototyping course was developed in the Penn State EE Department under the auspices of our Electronics Manufacturing pilot project; this pilot project is described in a separate MSE'97 paper [1]. Our course enlphasizes design methodology, techniques, and practical prototyping tradeoffs (design time - cost speed - power - area) as applied to the entire electronic system design hierarchy (system - module - chip circuit). A major goal of the class is to provide senior and entry graduate students experience with a design experience using a range of techniques and methodologies for rapid prototyping of electronic systems. The course was facilitated by extensive use of WWW resources; all course ''handouts'', tutorials, homework assignments, and reference materials were provided to students on the CEDCC web server.