University SI Course – COVID’19 Version

Challenged in all ways, we didn’t run the university SI course at DUT in the summer of 2020 like in previous years. Sad, but true. Then something amazing happened. Students started pressing for the course to run somehow. Happy to say we just completed a 14-week, COVID-19 version of the course. Some face-2-face, some over Zoom, not as much practical lab work, but all in all things worked out.

These 11 students are worth looking out for. Not many universities have signal integrity as a subject at all. Now, these soon-to-be engineers went out of their way to get this course to run and all completed the course yesterday. Welcome them to your team if you get the chance.

Looking for university SI students?

If you are looking for EE students with a good understanding of signal integrity, let me know what exciting project or student job you can offer and I will make sure these guys (and more) are alerted 🙂

Take advantage of the fact that we do have a university SI course running in both Copenhagen (DTU) and in Aarhus.

If you want to sign up for this course, the next one should run in the summer of 2021. We are all looking forward to a hopefully (fingers crossed) more “normal” version of it with lots of actual lab work, simulations, lectures, and company visits.

The subjects for this course – as for any good board-level SI courses – is centered on understanding the four cornerstone SI challenges:

• Reflections and termination in transmission lines
• Crosstalk between neighboring traces
• Simultaneous switching noise due to IC package parasitics
• Power distribution and supply voltage ripple

By understanding these mechanisms, and the practical limitations of manufacturing, most signal integrity problems can be solved and better yet: avoided before they ever happen.