CIE Components in Electronics
Freescale Semiconductor has announced that it is opening the first Electronic Systems Teaching Lab targeted at industrial applications in collaboration with the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick, UK. The Teaching Lab will benefit from Freescale’s latest technologies to support students beginning their careers in industrial engineering.
The Electronic Systems technology lab features 70 workstations with Freescale’s Kinetis K70F120M Tower Kits along with RGB screens and data acquisition modules to respond to today’s teaching requirements for embedded technologies. To complement the Tower Kits the School provides Kinetis FRDM-KL25Z Freedom boards to give students more opportunities for out-of-hours personal use.
Freescale’s Kinetis portfolio of ARM Cortex microcontrollers consists of multiple hardware and software-compatible core processors with low-power performance, memory scalability and feature integration. Families range from the entry-level Cortex-M0+ Kinetis L Series to the high-performance, feature-rich ARM Cortex-M4 Kinetis K and include a wide selection of analog, communication, HMI, connectivity and security features.
Kinetis MCUs are supported by comprehensive Freescale and third-party hardware and software which helps reduce development costs and time to market. The Freescale Tower System modular development platforms donated to the University by Freescale are used in combination software development tools to provide a comprehensive environment for students to study and explore embedded applications.
The lab is used to carry out educational hands-on training for hundreds of students in scheduled activities and provide a valuable knowledge base for future open-ended designs and research projects.
Commenting Dr. David C. Dyer said “I am very pleased that we have secured the support of Freescale. It is of great strategic importance and will enable our students not only to use ARM Cortex microcontrollers but potentially interact further with a respected semiconductor company. I hope it will mark the beginning of a long and evolving collaboration.” Dr. Matthew D. Higgins, also a faculty member, said “From a teaching perspective, this collaboration reassures me that our graduates and soon-to-be design engineers will have a sound foundation in embedded systems technology.”
“The addition of the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick to the portfolio of Universities featuring Freescale Teaching Labs provides students with state-of-the-art technology to prepare them for a career in Industrial and Automotive sectors” said Flavio Stiffan, responsible for the University Programs EMEA at Freescale. “Students can achieve greater employability by learning with the technologies that will shape applications for years to come”.
As part of the collaboration, Freescale experts will be available to provide lectures and presentations at the university to help ensure that students and professors are always up to date with their courseware.
