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The University of Texas at Dallas
Graduate Admissions

Graduate Program in Computer Engineering

http://www.ce.utdallas.edu

Faculty

Professors: Poras T. Balsara, Farokh B. Bastani, Cyrus D. Cantrell III, Dingzhu Du, Andrea Fumagalli, Gopal Gupta, Kamran Kiasaleh, William J. Pervin, Lakshman Tamil, Carl Sechen, Hsing-Mean (Edwin) Sha, Kang Zhang, Si-Qing Zheng, Dian Zhou
Research Professor: Vojin Oklobdzija
Associate Professors: Dinesh K. Bhatia, Jorge A. Cobb,
Ovidiu Daescu, Galigekere R. Dattatreya, Neeraj Mittal, Mehrdad Nourani, Ivor P. Page, Issa Panahi, Balakrishnan Prabhakaran , Ravi Prakash, S. Venkatesan, Yuke Wang, Weili Wu
Assistant Professors: Roozbeh Jafari
Senior Lecturer: Nathan Dodge

Objectives

The M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering emerged as a bridge between the increasingly overlapping disciplines of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. The M.S.C.E. degree program provides intensive preparation for engineers who seek knowledge and skills necessary for the design of complex systems comprised of both hardware and software components. It has a heavy emphasis on the design of high speed and complex hardware and highly reliable and time critical software systems.

Computer Engineering at UTD is a broadly based engineering discipline dealing with the sensing, processing, and transmission of information by making extensive use of electrical engineering and computer science principles. The CE program at UTD also encourages students and faculty to develop synergies with disciplines outside of engineering, such as medicine and the life sciences. CE faculty members are actively involved in advanced research and teaching in all major areas of computer engineering. The Erik Jonsson School is home to several research centers, and promotes graduate and undergraduate curriculum innovation. It is the driving force behind computer engineering’s rapid success and growth. The Erik Jonsson School has a large infrastructure of computing and other laboratory resources. The M.S.C.E. degree program provides intensive preparation for engineers who seek knowledge and skills necessary for the design of complex systems comprised of both hardware and software components. It has a heavy emphasis on the design of high speed and complex hardware and highly reliable and time critical software systems. It is designed to serve the needs of engineers who wish to continue their education. Courses are offered at a time and location convenient for the student who is employed on a full-time basis.

Facilities

The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science has developed a state-of-the-art computational facility consisting of a network of Sun servers and Sun Engineering Workstations. All systems are connected via an extensive fiber-optic Ethernet and, through the Texas Higher Education Network, have direct access to most major national and international networks. In addition, many personal computers are available for student use.

The Engineering and Computer Science Building provides extensive facilities for research in electrical engineering, telecommunications, and computer science and engineering.

The Center for Integrated Circuits and Systems (CICS) promotes education and research in the following areas: digital, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuit design and test; multimedia, DSP and telecom circuits and systems; rapid-prototyping; computer architecture and CAD algorithms. There are several laboratories affiliated with this center. These laboratories are equipped with a network of workstations, personal computers, FPGA development systems, prototyping equipment, and a wide spectrum of state-of-the-art commercial and academic design tools to support graduate research in circuits and systems.

The Center for Systems, Communications, and Signal Processing, with the purpose of promoting research and education in general communications, signal processing, control systems, medical and biological systems, circuits and systems and related software, is located in the Erik Jonsson School.

In the Digital Signal Processing Laboratory several multi-CPU workstations are available in a network configuration for simulation experiments. Hardware development facilities for real time experimental systems are available and include microphone arrays, active noise controllers, speech compressors and echo cancellers. The Distributed Computing Laboratory has a network of personal computers running Linux to support network simulation using discrete-event simulation packages. The Hardware/Software Co-design Laboratory has many workstations and PCs with DSP modules to support the experiments for various implementations in DSP and communications.

In addition to the facilities on campus, cooperative arrangements have been established with many local industries to make their facilities available to UT Dallas graduate engineering students.

Master of Science in Computer Engineering (M.S.C.E.)

Admission Requirements

The University’s general admission requirements are discussed here.

A student lacking undergraduate prerequisites for graduate courses in electrical engineering and computer science must complete these prerequisites or receive approval from the graduate advisor and the course instructor. A diagnostic exam may be required. Specific admission requirements follow.

The student entering the M.S.C.E. program should meet the following guidelines:

Applicants must submit three letters of recommendation from individuals able to judge the candidate’s probability of success in pursuing master’s study. Applicants must also submit an essay outlining the candidate’s background, education and professional goals.

Students from other engineering disciplines or from other science and math areas may be considered for admission to the program on a case-by-case basis; however, some additional course work may be necessary before starting the master’s program.

Degree Requirements

The University’s general degree requirements are discussed here.

The M.S.C.E. requires a minimum of 33 semester hours.

All students must have an academic advisor and an approved degree plan. Courses taken without advisor approval will not count toward the 33 semester-hour requirement. Successful completion of the approved course of studies leads to the M.S.C.E. degree.

The M.S.C.E. program has both a thesis and a non-thesis option. All part-time M.S.C.E. students will be assigned initially to the non-thesis option. Those wishing to elect the thesis option may do so by obtaining the approval of a faculty thesis supervisor.

All full-time, supported students are required to participate in the thesis option. The thesis option requires six semester hours of research, a written thesis submitted to the graduate school, and a formal public defense of the thesis. The supervising committee administers this defense and is chosen in consultation with the student’s thesis advisor prior to enrolling for thesis credit. Each student must take 4 required courses:


CE 6302 Microprocessor Systems
CE 6304 Computer Architecture
CE 6325 VLSI Design
CE 6378 Advanced Operating Systems

Approved electives must be taken to make a total of 33 hours. These courses must be at 6000 level or higher from computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and telecommunications engineering curricula with the approval of the advisor. It is highly recommended that two of these electives be chosen from the following list:


CE 6303 Testing and Testable Design
CE 6305 Computer Arithmetic
CE 6308 Real-Time Systems
CE 6352 Performance of Computer Systems and Networks
CS 6353 Compiler Construction
CE 6370 Design and Analysis of Reconfigurable Systems
CE 6375 Design Automation of VLSI Systems
CE 6380 Distributed Computing
CE 6397 Synthesis and Optimization of High Performance Systems
CE 6398 DSP Architectures

Students must achieve an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher, a GPA of 3.0 or higher in their core MSCE classes, and a grade of B- or higher in all their core MSCE classes in order to satisfy their degree requirements.

 

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Engineering

Objectives

The Ph.D. in Computer Engineering is awarded primarily to acknowledge the student’s success in an original research project, the description of which is a significant contribution to the literature of the discipline. Applicants for the doctoral program are therefore selected by the Computer Engineering Program Graduate Committee on the basis of research aptitude, as well as academic record. Applications for the doctoral program are considered on an individual basis.

Admission Requirements

The University’s general admission requirements are discussed here.

The admission requirements will be basically the same as the existing ones for admission to the Ph.D. programs in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The entrance requirements are

         A master’s degree in Computer Engineering or a closely associated discipline such as Electrical Engineering or Computer Science. Consideration will be given to highly qualified students wishing to pursue the doctorate without satisfying all of the requirements for a master’s degree.

         GPA in graduate level course work of 3.5 or higher on a 4-point scale.

         GRE scores of 500, 700 and 4 for the verbal, quantitative and analytical writing components, respectively, are advisable based on our experience with student success in the program.

Applicants must submit three letters of recommendation from individuals able to judge the candidate’s probability of success in pursuing doctoral study. Applicants must also submit an essay outlining the candidate’s background, education and professional goals.

Applicants must also submit a narrative describing their motivation for doctoral study and how it relates to their professional goals.

For students who are interested in a Ph.D. but are unable to attend school full-time, there is a part-time option. The guidelines for admission to the program and the degree requirements are the same as for full-time Ph.D. students. All students must have an academic adviser and an approved plan of study.

Degree Requirements

The University’s general degree requirements are discussed here.

The program will require a minimum of 75 semester credit hours beyond the baccalaureate degree. These credits must include at least 30 semester hours of graduate level courses beyond the baccalaureate level in the major concentration. The core requirements for the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering are the same as the ones for the M.S. in Computer Engineering. All PhD students must demonstrate competence in the Master's level core courses in their research area. However, a student’s supervising committee may impose course requirements that are necessary and appropriate for the student’s research program. It is expected that M.S degree students planning to enter the proposed doctoral program will take most of the courses as part of their M.S. degree requirements. All students must have an academic advisor and an approved plan of study.

Also required are:

         A research oriented oral qualifying examination (QE) demonstrating competence in the Ph.D. candidate’s research area. A student must make an oral presentation based on a review of 2 to 4 papers followed by a question-answer session. Admission to Ph.D. candidacy is based on two criteria: Graded performance in the QE and GPA in graduate level organized courses. A student entering the Ph.D. program must pass the QE within five long semesters from the date of admission into the Ph.D. program. A student has at most two attempts at this qualifying exam. The exam will be given during the fall and spring semesters.

         A comprehensive exam consisting of: a written dissertation proposal, a public seminar, and a private oral examination conducted by the Ph.D. candidate’s supervising committee.

         Completion of a major research project culminating in a dissertation demonstrating an original contribution to scientific knowledge and engineering practice. The dissertation will be defended publicly. The rules for this defense are specified by the Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies. Neither a foreign language nor a minor is required for the Ph.D. However, the student’s supervisory committee may impose these or other requirements that it feels are necessary and appropriate to the student’s degree program.

Dissertation

A dissertation is required and must be approved by the graduate program. A student must arrange for a dissertation advisor willing to guide this dissertation. The student must have a dissertation supervising committee that consists of no less than four members. The dissertation may be in computer engineering exclusively or it may involve considerable work in an area of application.

 

Last Updated: October 6, 2010