Physics is the soul of Engineering in General and Electrical Engineering in Particular

Kanti Prasad

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Conference: 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Publication Date: June 24, 2017
Start Date: June 24, 2017
End Date: June 28, 2017
Conference Session: Engineering Physics & Physics Division Technical Session 3
Tagged Division: Engineering Physics & Physics
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 13
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--28742
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/28742
Download Count: 3896

Paper Authors

biography

Kanti Prasad University of Massachusetts, Lowell

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Dr. Kanti Prasad is a professor in the department of electrical and computer Engineering and is founding Director of Microelectronics/VLSI Technology Laboratories at the University Massachusetts Lowell. Professor Prasad initiated the Microelectronics/ VLSI program in 1984, and is teaching 16.469/16.502 VLSI Design and 16.470/504 VLSI Fabrication courses since its inception. From the spring of 1986 Professor Prasad developed 16.661 Local Area/Computer Networks, and since 1994 VHDL Based Digital Design and taught up to 2001, till Dr. Terence Kelly (received his doctorate under supervision of Professor Prasad) took over. From spring 1998, Professor Prasad also developed and taught 16.517, MMIC Design and Fabrication course to meet the growing demand of regional semiconductor industries. He is the recipient of Zone I best paper award by American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) in 2008. He has been appointed as honorable member of IAAB of the MEGHE group of Institution and Shree Baba Ramdeo College of Engineering and Management (Nagpur) in India. He has also received the Best Teaching award for the New England Region, and the Best Campus award for the Zone 1 from ASEE during 2012. He is also coordinator for Graduate Studies in VLSI and Semiconductors certificate program. Professor Prasad already offered Online 16.517 MMIC Design and Fabrication during Spring 2009 and also developing MEMS Design and Fabrication to be offered Online starting from Spring 2013. He is the author of over 150 theses, dissertations and papers published and presented in journals/conferences of national and international repute. In 2013 Professor Prasad was awarded Fellow from the ASEE.

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Abstract

Abstract :

During my teaching of the State-of-Art courses for the last 30+ years, I have realized that the foundation of any Hi-tech course lies in the fundamentals. The fundamentals are derived from Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Nevertheless, Physics plays a crucial role in Engineering. I plan to depict this role in all my state-of-art courses. I am teaching at the moment i.e. 1) EECE 5020 VLSI Design, 2) EECE 5040 VLSI Fabrication, 3) EECE 5170 MMIC Design and Fabrication through detailed examples. In addition, I will also demonstrate the integration of Physics in the courses I developed and taught over the years such as, 1) Local Area and Computer Networking 2) Introduction to ITS Technologies 3) VHDL Based Digital Design. At present I am also teaching EECE 2020 Circuit Theory II. During this course I prepare students for Hi-Tech world because of integration of Physics in this course, which will be clearly depicted. Historically, about 250 years ago it was all physics and Applied Physics, which culminated into engineering later on. Based on increasing specializations engineering manifested into distinct disciplines such as 1) Civil, 2) Mechanical, 3) Electrical, 4) Chemical, 5) Material, 6) Plastic, and 7) Industrial Engineering, etc. However the role of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics is of vital importance in engineering. Physics certainly plays a cardinal role in engineering.

Citation
Format

Prasad, K. (2017, June), Physics is the soul of Engineering in General and Electrical Engineering in Particular Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28742