Author Topic: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT  (Read 29908 times)

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Offline agehall

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #75 on: August 30, 2017, 08:06:18 am »
I need to demonstrate to the program manager / Dean that,

1) The hardware isn't used in industry / isn't in demand enough to warrant it's use in education.
2) The skills gained from learning on said hardware are not easily applied to learning current hardware.
3) The cost benefit of changing hardware is positive.
4) Changing the hardware will be of significant benefit to the students and the reputation of the university.
5) The fundamentals can be equally taught using modern ARM processors.   

You'll sure give them a good laugh at least but you'll also prove to them that you are missing the whole point of what they are teaching you. Many university degrees are not meant to give you a hands on experience that is 100% applicable in the real world - they are meant to teach you how things really work and give you the tools for learning what you need to be successful in your career.

Just because you are not using the latest and greatest hardware doesn't mean what you are learning is useless. Think more in terms of concepts and methods rather than specific lines of code or CPU.
 
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Offline KE5FX

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #76 on: August 30, 2017, 08:12:12 am »
You'll sure give them a good laugh at least but you'll also prove to them that you are missing the whole point of what they are teaching you. Many university degrees are not meant to give you a hands on experience that is 100% applicable in the real world - they are meant to teach you how things really work and give you the tools for learning what you need to be successful in your career.

Just because you are not using the latest and greatest hardware doesn't mean what you are learning is useless. Think more in terms of concepts and methods rather than specific lines of code or CPU.

Same question I asked vealmike above, if you don't mind.  Let's take an informal poll. :)
 

Offline Kalvin

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #77 on: August 30, 2017, 08:13:58 am »
Does C even support typical DSP features like MAC

If the compiler is targeted for a processor with DSP features, you can make the compiler to produce code using the DSP-features, like MAC. Typically you have to write the code in a certain way/pattern (or use compiler's built-in extensions and library functions) so that the compiler can detect the specific patterns in order to be able to generate optimized code for certain common DSP-operations, like MAC. The compiler vendor will provide detailed information and examples how to do it properly. Always check the compiler output!

ARM M-series overview and FIR-filtering:
http://www.keil.com/pack/doc/CMSIS/DSP/html/index.html
http://www.keil.com/pack/doc/CMSIS/DSP/html/group__FIR.html

ADI ADSP-2116x, ADSP-2126x, ADSP-2136x and ADSP-2137x processors (PDF pages 257 ..., 268 ...):
http://www.analog.com/media/en/dsp-documentation/legacy-software-manuals/50_21k_cc_man.rev1.1.pdf

TI C2000 series processors:
http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/C2000_Performance_Tips_and_Tricks

TI C6000, section "Using Intrinsics to Access Assembly Language Statements":
http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/spru187u/spru187u.pdf
 

Offline vealmike

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #78 on: August 30, 2017, 08:25:35 am »
How familiar are you with DSP technology, personally? 
I'm not a DSP guy at all, but to ask the question I think you may be missing my point. I don't care about the implementation architecture and I doubt the university does either.

Its never going to happen these days, but a graduate trained in valves would be just as useful as an analogue guy as a graduate trained in op-amps. A graduate trained on the 6800 is just as useful as a grad trained on Arm.

When they get into the work environment, lack of experience and lack of exposure to rigorous process is what limits a graduates usefulness. I'd expect them to learn a new architecture far faster than they'll gain general experience. Provided of course that they have solid fundamentals.

Exact experience implementation of the fundamentals is irrelevant when hiring a grad.
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #79 on: August 30, 2017, 09:01:50 am »
Exact experience implementation of the fundamentals is irrelevant when hiring a grad.
Not true! These days companies expect graduats to have both knowledge of principles and knowledge on current technology. Companies don't want graduates who need a lot of training on basic stuff. http://thegradstudentway.com/blog/?p=810
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline vealmike

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #80 on: August 30, 2017, 09:09:59 am »
Exact experience implementation of the fundamentals is irrelevant when hiring a grad.
Not true! These days companies expect graduats to have both knowledge of principles and knowledge on current technology. Companies don't want graduates who need a lot of training on basic stuff. http://thegradstudentway.com/blog/?p=810
Our mileage, experience and expectations clearly differ. The likelihood of finding a grad with experience on the exact tool chain we're using is zero, so we have to retrain anyway. And then we'll retrain again when we do the next project.
It is far more important for a grad to have the correct attitude and enthusiasm than experience of the right toolchain.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #81 on: August 30, 2017, 09:12:52 am »
Ofcourse you can't expect a graduate to know about an obscure processor architecture but I'd expect a graduate to know about the ARM architecture just like I expect the person to know about Matlab, C/C++ and UML.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 
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Offline agehall

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #82 on: August 30, 2017, 09:18:01 am »
Exact experience implementation of the fundamentals is irrelevant when hiring a grad.
Not true! These days companies expect graduats to have both knowledge of principles and knowledge on current technology. Companies don't want graduates who need a lot of training on basic stuff. http://thegradstudentway.com/blog/?p=810

Firstly, the author of that blog seems to be in the biotech industry - that is a vastly different field than EE. You can't really compare the two tbh - many biotech and pharama companies look for PhDs to do even the most basic work for them.

The other factor is that companies prefer to hire people that have some sort of interest in what they are doing and if you have that, you will look into things on your own and learn about modern tech with the help of the principles you were taught in class.
 

Offline TK

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #83 on: August 30, 2017, 12:15:24 pm »
Soon learning DSP on ARM will be obsolete too... so I think the discussion goes back to the learning the fundamentals.

https://dspconcepts.com/st
 

Offline jefflieu

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #84 on: August 30, 2017, 01:41:21 pm »
@OP,
Uni can't train students for all sorts of platforms used out there.
That doesn't work. Only the concept can be reapplied.
The concept of bandwidth, sampling, stability, impulse response ... etc.
I wouldn't be bothered about it too much unless it's too time-consuming and pointless (Like doing GUI with assembly language).
Of course, it's helpful if the tool chain/platform is well-known and widely used in industry.
I''d put a weigh of the importance of tool/platform to be 25%.
I didn't get to touch any DSP processor during my time, only Matlab. Doing FFT was easy. :D
I find that you can train yourself what platform to use pretty quickly.
The hard part that needs some sort of "teaching" is the concept.
Also in the interviews, my employers didn't care what tool i used, it's always problem analysis and solving.
Just my thoughts


i love Melbourne
 

Online hans

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #85 on: August 30, 2017, 02:49:20 pm »
Well companies always ask for experience in their specific architecture. You can often figure out what CPU's a company is using by that style of vacancies.

There will always be niche choices for particular products. Few months ago I talked to a company that were using DSP Blackfins for data acquisition. No filtering or processing on the device (that was done a PC conveniently).. just grabbing data from an A/D at a few 100kHz and putting that over USB, ethernet or onto FLASH. One of their reasons was that SPI bus pins were not multiplexed with other functions, which could compromise the I/O allocation.

From my outside perspective I couldn't see why it won't run on a fast ARM chip in a big package (they were using BGA chips anyway), but they chose not to.

You may also need to support legacy products once a while. You think you're all set with these fancy cortex m4 chips that have tons of ram, half a dozen hardware breakpoints, data breakpoints, etc. All the tools in the world to debug them.

Then one day you jump back in time to the ARM7TDMI core (e.g. to solve a customer ticket) and curse everytime that you're using all of the 2 hardware breakpoints available, have got no data breakpoints, that you can't find a 1K buffer in that 16K of RAM for a serial trace module, and the quirks of an older architecture (like slow interrupts or lack of DMA).


I don't think age is much of an indication of relevance for a platform in an educational environment. If you look  at academic then alot of times the MIPS core is being thought in computer architecture, design and engineering because of it's licensing model. Nevertheless it's a working 32-bit CPU core that is used in the industry, although a lot more seldom than ARM.

If you want to work with more cutting edge stuff, especially in microcontrollers or FPGA world, then pick up a development board for 20-100$ and get coding. I'm pretty sure that for a college student even a 25$ Nucleo board can provide tons of (software) projects to show of your proficiency in embedded programming.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2017, 02:52:22 pm by hans »
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #86 on: August 30, 2017, 03:14:33 pm »
Well companies always ask for experience in their specific architecture. You can often figure out what CPU's a company is using by that style of vacancies.

Yes, but...

The companies that do that tend to be run by people that haven't got a technical clue, and/or are only interested in hiring people for the next project. Such companies won't be interested in the employees' personal development - at the end of the project the employees will be made redundant, and maybe their jobs done by someone cheaper. At that point how has the employees' CV improved? Probably not much, since now they don't have two projects experience, they have one projects experience - repeated twice. Do you really want to work like that, because in 3 years time your experience probably won't be worth much!

The better companies with more interesting jobs don't work like that.

In other cases, while companies ask for experience of specific architectures, in reality they aren't too concerned. So long as you have any tenuous reason to be able to put architecture X.3.56 in your CV, it will pass their HR-bozo filter and you can get an interview with the engineers and display your value to them. If the engineers think that experience of X.3.56 is necessary, then you probably don't want to work there.

So, you should learn DSP on whatever architecture is used on the course, and have a small home-project using a $5 ARM board. That will be sufficient to pass the ridiculous bozo filter!
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline brucehoult

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #87 on: August 30, 2017, 03:27:40 pm »
Well companies always ask for experience in their specific architecture. You can often figure out what CPU's a company is using by that style of vacancies.

Yes, but...

The companies that do that tend to be run by people that haven't got a technical clue, and/or are only interested in hiring people for the next project. Such companies won't be interested in the employees' personal development - at the end of the project the employees will be made redundant, and maybe their jobs done by someone cheaper. At that point how has the employees' CV improved? Probably not much, since now they don't have two projects experience, they have one projects experience - repeated twice. Do you really want to work like that, because in 3 years time your experience probably won't be worth much!

The better companies with more interesting jobs don't work like that.

In other cases, while companies ask for experience of specific architectures, in reality they aren't too concerned. So long as you have any tenuous reason to be able to put architecture X.3.56 in your CV, it will pass their HR-bozo filter and you can get an interview with the engineers and display your value to them. If the engineers think that experience of X.3.56 is necessary, then you probably don't want to work there.

So, you should learn DSP on whatever architecture is used on the course, and have a small home-project using a $5 ARM board. That will be sufficient to pass the ridiculous bozo filter!

This. All of it.

Do the course work with what the perfectly fine processor they've prepared the lessons for. If you want, get yourself an ARM-based Arduino-clone at home -- or better, an FPGA with an embedded ARM (e.g. Zynq). The cost is minimal, and the experience will be more than enough to pass interview questions let alone bozo HR filters.
 
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Offline Sal Ammoniac

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #88 on: August 30, 2017, 05:59:38 pm »
Why does everyone think you can't learn the basic principles on ARM?  major :palm: !
ARM isn't going away anytime soon and if I hire someone who already knows this architecture then I don't need to pay for that person learning it (which will take more than just a few hours)!

Not everyone uses ARM (believe it or not), and the learning curve for a competent engineer to learn ARM isn't that great. I came from a MC68K/MIPS background and learned the ARM architecture in about a week.

I'd have no issues with hiring someone with MIPS or ARC 600 experience, say, and no ARM experience to work on an ARM project. Sure, someone with ARM experience, all other things being equal, would be a better match, but the world is bigger than just the ARM fiefdom.
Complexity is the number-one enemy of high-quality code.
 

Offline NorthGuy

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #89 on: August 30, 2017, 06:03:58 pm »
 

Offline andyturk

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #90 on: August 30, 2017, 06:44:51 pm »
Having been a hiring manager for a couple of silicon valley startups, I can say that hiring new grads for engineering positions is very different than hiring for a more senior role. First, the way that you find candidates is different. Most senior candidates come through recruiting firms (or services) and the sheer volume of resumes is a burden. Sorting through the posers is hard work and after a while, you cut candidates from the process pretty quickly.

For fresh grad candidates, those resumes arrive either over the transom or via a recommendation/referral and there aren't quite as many. Management (mine anyway) is always interested in new grads because they're "cheaper" than seasoned pros. Not sure I agree with that generally, but there are some grads who will turn into rockstars and it's worth the effort to try to find them.

Personally, what I look for in a new grad is someone who's accomplished something beyond just coursework. It might be personal engineering projects on the side, or some kind of significant experience that's entirely apart from going to school. A candidate who emphasizes coursework alone is one who (maybe) doesn't have enough drive to push through difficult challenges. Plus, when I was in school, none of the Profs could program their way out of a paper bag--we had to learn that on our own.

It's great that you took a DSP class, but I want to know if you can adapt that thought process to the messy problems we face in product development where sometimes we don't even know if the approach we're taking is going to work.
 
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #91 on: August 30, 2017, 09:41:31 pm »
You need to go to them with a solution, not just a complaint.
Who will write the new course material for the new hardware? This alone could dictate everything. If some DSP manufacturer has DSP kit that targets courses with pre-prepared class material and project example, then there is your solution.
That's a superb tip in general. If you have a problem with how things are or go, don't just report a problem. You'll be considered a nuisance for it, for you create problem where there were none perceived. However, if you also provide a reasonable solution, it is much harder for others to say no without looking bad, and part of the work is also already done. If you play your cards right, the other will have a chance to look good while improving things for you, and that kind of motivation helps. Everybody wins.
 
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #92 on: August 30, 2017, 09:47:24 pm »
Not true! These days companies expect graduats to have both knowledge of principles and knowledge on current technology. Companies don't want graduates who need a lot of training on basic stuff. http://thegradstudentway.com/blog/?p=810
Companies often expect the most ridiculous things. A recent example I came across was a company asking for 8 years of experience with something that was only available for 5. Go figure. They can ask for 40 years of experience in graduates all they want.
 
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Offline IanB

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #93 on: August 30, 2017, 10:00:11 pm »
Companies that expect ridiculous things are not companies you want to work for. An interview is a two-way process. You are interviewing them and they are interviewing you. Never hesitate to turn down a job if the situation is bad.
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #94 on: August 30, 2017, 10:10:46 pm »
Not true! These days companies expect graduats to have both knowledge of principles and knowledge on current technology. Companies don't want graduates who need a lot of training on basic stuff. http://thegradstudentway.com/blog/?p=810
Companies often expect the most ridiculous things. A recent example I came across was a company asking for 8 years of experience with something that was only available for 5. Go figure. They can ask for 40 years of experience in graduates all they want.
Those are the insane job descriptions probably put together by headhunters or HR people. That still doesn't mean it is a good idea to learn about obsolete technology. Just look at realistic EE job descriptions and you'll see that most list knowledge about modern technology like ARM, Wifi, bluetooth, IP networks, etc at least as a plus.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #95 on: August 30, 2017, 10:18:23 pm »
Companies that expect ridiculous things are not companies you want to work for. An interview is a two-way process. You are interviewing them and they are interviewing you. Never hesitate to turn down a job if the situation is bad.
Very true. Just make sure you don't turn down companies because the HR monkeys did something stupid.

Those are the insane job descriptions probably put together by headhunters or HR people. That still doesn't mean it is a good idea to learn about obsolete technology. Just look at realistic EE job descriptions and you'll see that most list knowledge about modern technology like ARM, Wifi, bluetooth, IP networks, etc at least as a plus.
It's not about obsolete technology, it's about learning the principles. Someone who knows ARM, but doesn't see the bigger picture is not going to be very popular. I have to assume that the people that put the curriculum together chose this processor at least in part because it's relatively simple, which means there isn't much stuff going on that only confuses and distracts students.

Not being able to buy the materials yourself isn't very convenient, that's true.
 

Offline KE5FX

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #96 on: August 30, 2017, 10:44:44 pm »
It's not about obsolete technology, it's about learning the principles. Someone who knows ARM, but doesn't see the bigger picture is not going to be very popular. I have to assume that the people that put the curriculum together chose this processor at least in part because it's relatively simple, which means there isn't much stuff going on that only confuses and distracts students.

Same question as above, if you don't mind.  You're in the (rather large) club defending the school's choice to teach DSP with a platform that's several years older than the students themselves.  What's your (recent) industry background in this area?
 

Offline MT

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #97 on: August 30, 2017, 10:59:58 pm »
Companies often expect the most ridiculous things. A recent example I came across was a company asking for 8 years of experience with something that was only available for 5. Go figure. They can ask for 40 years of experience in graduates all they want.

That's not even recent but at least a 15- 20 year old practice. I recall the search for ""Superman"" started late 90'es or so.
It came to be when recruit personnel was rebranded to Human Resources, ie blingyfication.
Suddenly HR become pomp and circumstance often populated by non tech people.
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #98 on: August 30, 2017, 11:43:05 pm »
It's not about obsolete technology, it's about learning the principles. Someone who knows ARM, but doesn't see the bigger picture is not going to be very popular. I have to assume that the people that put the curriculum together chose this processor at least in part because it's relatively simple, which means there isn't much stuff going on that only confuses and distracts students.

Same question as above, if you don't mind.  You're in the (rather large) club defending the school's choice to teach DSP with a platform that's several years older than the students themselves.  What's your (recent) industry background in this area?

It sounds like if you are presented with two hypothetical candidates:
  • has used an A9 ARM
  • knows when to choose an IIR or FIR and how to determine the precision required in the intermediate calculations
then you would choose the former.

I wouldn't; none of the companies I've worked for would have either.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline KE5FX

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Re: Engineering Students being taught DSP on 20 year old processors RMIT
« Reply #99 on: August 31, 2017, 12:02:06 am »
It sounds like if you are presented with two hypothetical candidates:
  • has used an A9 ARM
  • knows when to choose an IIR or FIR and how to determine the precision required in the intermediate calculations
then you would choose the former.

I wouldn't; none of the companies I've worked for would have either.

First, I don't believe anyone has argued in favor of not teaching students about filters and bit growth.  This goes beyond failing to answer the question the OP asked, and into the category of making stuff up at random to bolster a weak argument.

Seocnd, what good does it do if the candidate has never encountered IEEE 754 floats before, as might be the case with a 56K-based curriculum?  Do I want them to climb that learning curve on my payroll?
 


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