Thesis and coursework-only options are available in the ECE M.S. program. All ECE M.S. students are required to submit a Track Completion Form to the department before completion of sixteen EE and ECE graduate credits. In addition to the University master’s degree requirements, an ECE M.S. student must complete at least 45 graduate-level credits. Coursework taken without adviser approval may not be accepted as part of the student’s program.
Thesis Option
Students interested in completing a thesis should contact potential faculty advisors to inquire about this option. Thesis M.S. students usually follow a plan consisting of five EE/ECE courses aligned with their thesis research area (20 credits), 9 credits of thesis, 2 credits of Grad School Essentials (ECE 563 and ECE 564), and 14 elective credits. Elective credits may include additional EE and ECE graduate courses, ECE 501-ECE 509 credits, or, with adviser approval, graduate classes from another department. Only 3 credits of ECE 507 may be counted as elective credits.
Students should choose a research topic and adviser for their thesis; information on research in the department can be found on the department’s website. Thesis M.S. students must also develop, write, and give an oral defense of a thesis approved by the student’s thesis committee. The defense is public and its schedule must be posted in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at least two weeks in advance.
Coursework-only option
For the coursework-only M.S. option, students take courses following an adviser-approved track of graduate classes. Please see the pre-approved coursework-only tracks below. These tracks were designed by the faculty to give both depth and breadth of knowledge in the specified study area. It is also possible for students to develop a custom track with a faculty adviser. The coursework-only option requires students to complete 16 credits of EE and ECE graduate lecture classes that form a core specialization area, 16 credits of EE and ECE graduate lecture classes that provide depth and breadth, 4 credits of elective EE and ECE graduate lecture classes, and 9 credits of approved graduate electives.
The required 16 credits of core specialization for each of the pre-approved coursework-only tracks are as follows:
Analog, RF, and Microwave Circuit Design
| ECE 521 | Analog Integrated Circuit Design I | 4 |
| ECE 522 | Analog Integrated Circuit Design II | 4 |
| ECE 531 | Microwave Circuit Design I | 4 |
| ECE 532 | Microwave Circuit Design II | 4 |
Communications
| ECE 561 | Communication Systems Design I | 4 |
| ECE 562 | Communication Systems Design II | 4 |
| EE 522 | Discrete Time Processing | 4 |
| EE 523 | Estimation and Detection | 4 |
Computer Architecture and Design
| ECE 585 | Microprocessor System Design | 4 |
| ECE 586 | Computer Architecture | 4 |
| ECE 587 | Advanced Computer Architecture I | 4 |
| ECE 588 | Advanced Computer Architecture II | 4 |
Design Verification and Validation
| ECE 560 | Assertion Based Verification | 4 |
| ECE 571 | Introduction to System Verilog for Design and Verification | 4 |
| ECE 582 | Formal Verification of Hardware/Software Systems | 4 |
| ECE 593 | Fundamentals of Pre-Silicon Validation | 4 |
Digital IC Design
| ECE 525 | Digital Integrated Circuit Design I | 4 |
| ECE 526 | Digital Integrated Circuit Design II | 4 |
| ECE 530 | Physical Design of Digital Integrated Circuits | 4 |
| ECE 581 | ASIC: Modeling and Synthesis | 4 |
Embedded Systems
| ECE 540 | System-on-Chip Design with FPGAs | 4 |
| ECE 544 | Embedded System Design with FPGAs | 4 |
| ECE 558 | Embedded Systems Programming | 4 |
| ECE 571 | Introduction to System Verilog for Design and Verification | 4 |
Power Engineering
| EE 530 | Analytical Methods for Power Systems | 4 |
| EE 531 | Power Systems Protection | 4 |
| EE 532 | Electrical Machine Analysis and Design | 4 |
| EE 537 | Advanced Power Systems Protection | 4 |
Signal Processing and Machine Learning
| EE 516 | Mathematical Foundations of Machine Learning | 4 |
| EE 520 | Random Processes | 4 |
| EE 522 | Discrete Time Processing | 4 |
| EE 523 | Estimation and Detection | 4 |
VLSI Physical Design Automation Track
| ECE 516 | Integrated Circuit (IC) Technologies | 4 |
| ECE 528 | VLSI Computer-Aided Design | 4 |
| ECE 529 | CAD for ULSI and Emerging Technologies | 4 |
| ECE 583 | Low Power Digital IC Design | 4 |