EE and CE students are taught how to design circuits and write computer code, but are not taught how to find, characterize, and fix defects (bugs). When their circuit design or code design has problems, they are often at a loss to analyze and fix the problem in a timely manner. This is exacerbated when the system being debugged has real-time constraints, as might be the case of a computer controlling the engine management system of a modern automobile.

In this talk, Iâ€^TMll discuss my progress in the development of a formal course for EE and CE students on the process of debugging as an engineering discipline, rather than an ad hoc skill that most engineers learn on the job.

Bio

Arnie Berger has a Ph.D. from Cornell University and has 20+ years of industrial experience ranging from hardware design engineer to Director of Research and Development (R&D) at several companies including Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and Applied Microsystems. Dr. Berger has more than 15 years of teaching experience at the University of Washington Bothell campus. He chaired the faculty committee that created the BSEE degree at UWB.

Dr. Berger has published over 55 papers, holds four patents and authored three books on computer architecture, embedded systems design, and debugging real-time systems . He is a senior member of IEEE.

Dr. Bergerâ€^TMs expertise is in digital design and embedded system design. His research interests are on methods of debugging and validating performance of real-time computer systems, and the specialized tools required to do this. He is currently working on a system to reduce the background noise in restaurants.