Embedded Systems Engineering Co-Op II
Kurtis
Experience Information
Employer: DornerWorks, Ltd
Job Title: Embedded Systems Engineering Co-Op
Major: Electrical Engineering
Received Credit: Yes
Paid: Yes
Abroad: No
Description of the Organization
DornerWorks is an embedded systems engineering company that offers electrical engineering design services for automotive, aerospace, medical, and industrial markets. Specifically, DornerWorks offers engineering expertise related to embedded software development, custom logic design, and electronics hardware design.
Description of the Tasks/Projects Completed
I was assigned to the custom logic team for this particular semester. Thus, I became familiar with writing professional VHDL code and I wrote VHDL modules for commonly used modules intended to be used for future SoC designs. Furthermore, I completed simulations to ensure VHDL module behavioral functionality. I also wrote Python and C code for an internally developed custom logic software tool that enabled engineers to conveniently compile VHDL cores. Lastly, I worked on integrating an Aptina camera board with a daughter card and a Stratix IV FPGA. The daughter card and the camera module weren't designed to directly interface with one another; thus, careful board bring-up and testing procedures were performed. PCB modifications were performed as well. I also helped configure the video processing SOPC modules. Moreover, I wrote C code for the embedded NIOSII on the Stratix IV in order to configure the SOPC video modules. SignalTap was used to obtain empirical samples of the internal signals within the video pipeline for debugging purposes.
Skills/Knowledge Gained Through The Experience
Concepts: - The VHDL language and syntax - Professional VHDL coding style - Professional VHDL documentation - VHDL Testbench design - VHDL Simulations - Metastability of signals - Python, Makefile, and bash scripting - High speed hardware design practices - Intro to digital video processing - LVDS camera data and deserialization - I2C configuration - Altera video module functionality Tools: - Quartus II with SOPC Builder - NIOSII with Eclipse - Questa ModelSIM - Xilinx ISim
Favorite Part of the Experience
I have greatly enjoyed the diverse array of tasks and projects that I have been given this semester ranging from custom logic, software development, to hardware design practices.
How the Experience Influenced Future Career Goals
This experience has inspired me to continue learning more about custom logic and FPGA design. I would like to be adept in both hardware and custom logic design. Both of these fields are very exciting to me.