Education
As the premier nanotechnology organization at Northeastern University, The Institute for NanoSystems Innovation offers a wide range of education opportunities.
The courses offered by NanoSI faculty span key areas of electrical and computer engineering, focusing on cutting-edge technologies that align with the Institute for NanoSystems Innovation’s (NanoSI) mission. These courses cover topics such as semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, photonics, optics, and advanced computing architectures—foundational fields driving innovations in nanotechnology and nanoscale systems. By providing students with both theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience, these courses prepare the next generation of engineers and researchers to tackle challenges in nanoelectronics, quantum computing, and emerging deep-tech industries.
NanoSI Courses
Explore the range of courses offered by NanoSI faculty.
Spring 2025
EECE 2150: Circuits/Signals: Biomed Apps
Instructor: Aatmesh Shrivastava
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq 99: MR 10:30am-12:50pm; W 10:30am-11:35am
Course Description:
Offers an integrated lecture/lab course that covers circuit theory, signal processing, circuit building, and MATLAB programming. Introduces basic device and signal models and circuit laws used in the study of linear circuits. Analyzes resistive and complex impedance networks. Uses the ideal operational amplifier model, focusing on differential amplifiers and active filter circuits. Introduces basic concepts of linearity and time-invariance for both continuous and discrete-time systems and concepts associated with analog/digital conversion. Demonstrates discrete-time linear filter design on acquired signals in the MATLAB environment. Offers students an opportunity to explore circuits and signals in the lab and to use their knowledge of circuits, analog signals, digital signals, and biological signals to build a working analog/digital EKG system.
Prerequisite(s): (GE 1111 with a minimum grade of D- or GE 1502 with a minimum grade of D- ); MATH 2341 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D- ; (PHYS 1155 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D- or PHYS 1165 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D- or PHYS 1175 with a minimum grade of D- ); EECE 2140 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data
EECE 2210: Electrical Engineering
Instructor: Siddhartha Ghosh
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq B: MW 2:50pm-4:30pm
Course Description:
Introduces the basic concepts related to circuits and circuit elements; current, voltage, and power; models for resistors, capacitors, and inductors; and circuit analysis using Kirchhoff’s laws. Discusses selected topics that illustrate a variety of applications of electrical engineering, such as AC circuits and electric power, the basics of semiconductor devices with applications to transistor amplifier models, transients in circuits with energy storage, mechanical controls and mechatronics, digital signals, logic circuits, and some basic concepts of computer operations, specifically, number coding, arithmetic operations, and memory circuits.
Prerequisite(s): MATH 1342 with a minimum grade of D-
Corequisite(s): EECE 2211
EECE 2210: Electrical Engineering
Instructor: Soner Sonmezoglu
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq E: WF 11:45am-1:25pm
Course Description:
Introduces the basic concepts related to circuits and circuit elements; current, voltage, and power; models for resistors, capacitors, and inductors; and circuit analysis using Kirchhoff’s laws. Discusses selected topics that illustrate a variety of applications of electrical engineering, such as AC circuits and electric power, the basics of semiconductor devices with applications to transistor amplifier models, transients in circuits with energy storage, mechanical controls and mechatronics, digital signals, logic circuits, and some basic concepts of computer operations, specifically, number coding, arithmetic operations, and memory circuits.
Prerequisite(s): MATH 1342 with a minimum grade of D-
Corequisite(s): EECE 2211
EECE 2412: Fundamentals of Electronics
Instructor: Xufeng Zhang
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq 4: MWR 1:35pm-2:40pm
Course Description:
Reviews basic circuit analysis techniques. Briefly introduces operation of the principal semiconductor devices: diodes, field-effect transistors, and bipolar junction transistors. Covers diode circuits in detail; the coverage of transistor circuits focuses mainly on large-signal analysis, DC biasing of amplifiers, and switching behavior. Uses PSpice software to simulate circuits and large-signal models and transient simulations to characterize the behavior of transistors in amplifiers and switching circuits. Digital electronics topics include CMOS logic gates, dynamic power dissipation, gate delay, and fan-out. Amplifier circuits are introduced with the evaluation of voltage transfer characteristics and the fundamentals of small-signal analysis.
Prerequisite(s): EECE 2150 with a minimum grade of D- or EECE 2210 with a minimum grade of D- or BIOE 3210 with a minimum grade of D-
Corequisite(s): EECE 2413
EECE 5606: Micro and Nano Fabrication
Instructor: Aatmesh Shrivastava
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq B: MW 2:50pm-4:30pm
Course Description:
Offers an integrated lecture/lab course that covers circuit theory, signal processing, circuit building, and MATLAB programming. Introduces basic device and signal models and circuit laws used in the study of linear circuits. Analyzes resistive and complex impedance networks. Uses the ideal operational amplifier model, focusing on differential amplifiers and active filter circuits. Introduces basic concepts of linearity and time-invariance for both continuous and discrete-time systems and concepts associated with analog/digital conversion. Demonstrates discrete-time linear filter design on acquired signals in the MATLAB environment. Offers students an opportunity to explore circuits and signals in the lab and to use their knowledge of circuits, analog signals, digital signals, and biological signals to build a working analog/digital EKG system.
Prerequisite(s): (GE 1111 with a minimum grade of D- or GE 1502 with a minimum grade of D- ); MATH 2341 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D- ; (PHYS 1155 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D- or PHYS 1165 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D- or PHYS 1175 with a minimum grade of D- ); EECE 2140 (may be taken concurrently) with a minimum grade of D-
Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data”
EECE 5649: Design of Analog Integrated Circuits with Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Technology
Instructor: Marvin Onabajo
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq D: TF 9:50am-11:30am
Course Description:
Covers theoretical analysis, practical design, and simulation of analog integrated circuits implemented in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication process technologies. Introduces cadence tools for circuit simulations, physical layout, and layout verification. Begins with basic concepts such as CMOS device models, DC and small-signal analysis techniques for single- and multistage amplifiers, biasing configurations, and reference generation circuits. Explores differential signal processing, operational amplifiers, operational transconductance amplifiers, and common-mode feedback circuits. Analysis methods include the evaluation of linearity, noise, stability, and device mismatches from process variations. Addresses some advanced design techniques, such as linearity improvement methods, frequency compensation, and digitally assisted performance tuning.
Prerequisite(s): EECE 3410 with a minimum grade of D- or graduate program admission
EECE 5652: Microwave Circuits and System
Instructor: Aravind Nagulu
Meetings:
Boston – Live Cast
Seq G: TF 3:25pm-5:05pm
Oakland – In Class
Seq 99: TF 12:25pm-2:05pm
Course Description:
Addresses novel applications of analytical and engineering techniques for RF/microwave circuits, in addition to transmission lines, impedance matching, S-parameters, high-frequency circuit analysis, power dividers, resonators, filters, amplifier, and nonlinear components. Emphasizes fundamental concepts, essential mathematical formulas and theorems, and engineering applications. Provides ample examples to offer participants an opportunity to fully appreciate the power of the techniques described and gain extensive experience in the area of high-frequency circuits, from theory formulation to novel engineering designs.
Prerequisite(s): ((EECE 2150 with a minimum grade of D- or EECE 2210 with a minimum grade of D- or BIOE 3210 with a minimum grade of D- ); (EECE 2530 with a minimum grade of D- )) or graduate program admission
EECE 5653: Introduction to Quantum Engineering
Instructor: Sunil Mittal
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq A: MR 11:45am-1:25pm
Course Description:
Introduces the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics and their applications to emerging quantum technologies such as quantum computation, secure quantum communications, and quantum-enhanced sensing. Covers the description of simple quantum systems such as harmonic oscillators using Schrodinger’s equation and operator formalism; the use of quantum platforms such as photons to encode qubits; generating and characterizing entanglement; and the implementation of quantum circuits for quantum computation and communication algorithms such as teleportation, entanglement swapping, and factoring. Emphasizes the foundations to prepare students for research in quantum devices and their applications to quantum information sciences.
Prerequisite(s): MATH 2341 with a minimum grade of D- or graduate program admission
EECE 5698: ST: Visual Sensing and Computing Co-Design for Edge Machine Perception
Instructor: Xuan (Silvia) Zhang
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq A: MR 11:45am-1:25pm
Course Description:
This class provides a comprehensive introduction on AI-driven visual sensing and computing. Computational vision sensors play a major role in enabling machine perception in edge AI devices. Technology behind these machine vision systems necessarily spans many scientific and engineering domains such as color science, image sensor design, optics, signal processing, and computer systems. We will start by presenting the fundamental building blocks of visual sensing, including basic operations of digital camera systems and design and modeling of computational image sensors. We will then introduce the joint optimization of sensor system and vision algorithm and finally explore application examples of edge machine perception. Topics covered include geometric transformations and spatial analysis; camera optics; image signal processor; image and video compression; image sensor pixel design; sensor peripheral and readout circuitry; and selected topics on sensor/algorithm co-design and in-sensor and near-sensor computing.
Pre-requisite requirement: EECE 2412. Fundamentals of Electronics AND EECE 2322. Fundamentals of Digital Design and Computer Organization OR
Graduate standing
EECE 5698: ST: Semiconductor Packaging
Instructor: David Horsley
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq 99: TR 5:10pm-6:50pm
Course Description:
Covers the fundamentals of design, materials, and manufacturing processes in modern semiconductor packaging. Featuring a series of guest lectures from industry experts who will share the latest methods used at leading semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley and beyond. Introduction to package materials, types, manufacturing methods and metrology. Introduction to reliability standards and reliability testing. Overview of statistical techniques and commonly-used software tools for the analysis of test data. The role of packaging in future technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) including chiplets and 2.5D and 3D heterogenous integration.
Course Prerequisites: Graduate standing or EECE 4604. Integrated Circuit Devices or EECE 3392. Electronic Materials
EECE 7201: Solid State Devices
Instructor: Benyamin Davaji
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq A: MR 11:45am-1:25pm
Oakland – Live Cast
Seq 99: MR 8:45am-10:25am
Course Description:
Covers the fundamental elements of solid-state device physics and the application of these principles. Seeks to provide students with the opportunity to develop an understanding of pn junctions, bipolar junction transistors, and MOSFET
EECE 7284: Optical Properties of Matter
Instructor: Yongmin Liu
Meetings:
Boston – In Class
Seq A: MR 11:45am-1:25pm
Course Description:
Presents the formal mathematical treatment of classical crystal optics including dispersion, polarization, birefringence, metal optics, and the optics of thin films. Emphasis is on the interaction of electromagnetic waves and the crystal lattice. Classical crystal optics are extended to nonlinear effects observed with very intense electric and magnetic fields. Presents applications of nonlinear optics, such as second- and third-harmonic generation, optical mixing, optical parametric oscillation, multiple photon interaction, and linear and nonlinear scattering. Various topics in linear and nonlinear optics are applied in such areas as birefringent filters, second-harmonic generators, optical parametric oscillators, and acousto-optical beam deflectors.