It is an undisputed statement that electronics has become an integral part of almost everything around us. You can take it for granted that all smart things around us - Smart Phones, Smart home, Smart Cars, Smart City etc have electronics embedded in them to make them act (or work) smart. And this list of smart things is humongous. Embedded system is a very small computer that is hidden (or embedded) inside a device (or thing) to make it smart by automating its functionalities. Miniaturization of semiconductor components and at the same time increase in their compute power, all due to advances in the VLSI technology has made it possible for us to have small size microcontrollers that offer high computing power and forms a brain of embedded system. One such example is Texas Instruments (TI) MSP430 microcontroller. In addition embedded system requires an intelligent hardware design so that microcontroller and all other peripheral components can be efficiently packed (interconnected) in a small area and finally embedded into a device (or thing) to make it smart.

So a good embedded system design requires knowledge of a good microcontroller and good hardware design skills and most important good hands-on experience of building stuff.

We at Chitkara University decided to train our students on embedded system design and offered an almost one month long internship program to the students of second year ECE so that they gain enough hands-on experience. We teamed up with Texas Instruments-Center for Embedded Product Design (TI-CEPD) @ NSIT, New Delhi for the program. The program was conducted in the TI lab in Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering (ECE), Chitkara University H.P. during July 3-28, 2017. 40 ECE students were selected to undergo this program. The key resource person for the program was Prof. Dhananjay V Gadre, Director TI-CEPD. He along with his team conducted the sessions.

The key objective of the program was to build a complete embedded system from the scratch which includes learning of a microcontroller (we used MSP430 microcontroller from TI), learning electronic hardware design issues, power supply design, schematic & PCB layout design and PCB fabrication process.

Students used MSP430 Launch pad as a platform for programming and debugging MSP430G2553IN20 microcontroller IC that they used in their projects. They learnt the features of this ICs which includes 16kB Flash, 512B RAM, interruptible GPIOs (capacitive sense-capable), 16-bit timers, 8ch 10-bit ADC, Comparator, Serial Communication (USCI - I2C, SPI & UART) & more. They were taught how to use different features depending upon their project requirements. They explored the architecture of MSP430 which was important to program the microcontroller using software IDE (Code Composer Studio).

Students carried out hardware design using Eagle Tool. They first made the schematic of their complete system followed by PCB layout. Using PCB fabrication process they transferred their layouts on PCBs, mounted and soldered components to complete their design.

Following were the projects that were carried out - Twilight Switch, Mood Lamp, Fridge Theft Monitor, Electronic Roulette, Catch the LED, Trihex, Color Organ etc.

Some of the general yet important concepts students learned during this training program were significance of clock and its impact on power, low power modes in embedded systems, real time clock interfacing, different types of multiplexing techniques, power supply issues and design, communication protocols in microcontrollers etc.

The program was concluded in a project demonstration and a valedictory function conducted on July 28, 2017.

By - Sagar Juneja - Research Associate, CURIN, Chitkara University