2003-2004 Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Reseach CentersCEINT funds research projects toextend the reach of embeddedsystems applications into newmarkets and to broaden the depth ofexisting applications. The ResearchCommittee members organize,evaluate, and recommend proposalsto the CEINT Board of Directors forfunding twice a year.“The environment used in thecourse is very close to what industryuses,” Lee said. “What students learnin this course is a very good sellingpoint. I think they can find achallenging and promising job to starttheir career.”The second course exploreshardware/software interfaces inembedded systems, with a focus onperipheral interfaces. Studentscontrol these hardware componentsthat interact with the environmentusing software written with high-levellanguage. Motorola helped outfit thedevelopment systems in a laboratoryfor this course, which is intended tocomplement the one on real-timeembedded systems.Students appear to be pleased withthe new classes, each of which hasbeen offered once. One studentwrote on evaluation for thehardware/software interface course,“This was one of the best classes Ihave attended at ASU in terms ofeducational value.”Of course, the consortium isn’t allfor the students. The creation of newembedded systems technology is avital part of CEINT activities. Theconsortium provides one year ofseed funding to researchers toperform initial work on a project suchthat an outside agency or corporationwould be interested in it. Althoughembedded systems are found inmany different devices, work fundedby CEINT focuses ontelecommunications applications.The work of Assistant ProfessorKaramvir Chatha is a good example.One of his projects looks atadvanced architectures forembedded processors in highperformance communicationsystems.As embedded processortechnology becomes smaller—90nanometers or less—acommunication signal requires morethan one clock cycle to travel acrossthe chip. Signal integrity is also anissue, as signals are corrupted dueto crosstalk errors duringcommunication. Thus, typical busbasedarchitectures can’t be utilizedfor these embedded processors.One solution is to build a networkon a chip. This advanced architectureenables communication within asingle embedded processor just as acomputer network allows PCs to talk.But the hardware for a network on achip must be area and powerefficient. Chatha has created aprototype of a nanoscale router, andis testing it now.With the success of both researchand academic programs, CEINT hasproved what a university-industrypartnership can achieve. In March2003 Intel, Motorola and ASUextended their commitment to CEINTthrough July 2005. Recruitment ofnew members is underway. Theultimate goal of all CEINT’s activitiesis to turn the Phoenix metro area andthe state of Arizona into a globallyrecognized center for embeddedsystems. It’s an ambitious goal, butthe consortium is well on its way.ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 17