An Overview of the Department
The Department of Electronic and Information Engineering (EIE) was founded in 1974. Before August 1998 it was known as the Department of Electronic Engineering. With over 70 postgraduate research students, 250 coursework postgraduate students, 500 full-time undergraduate students and 200 part-time undergraduate students, the department is among the largest academic units in Hong Kong providing a full range of tertiary programmes in electronic engineering. Academic staff members are active in their respective areas of research, and secure the department with top-quality teaching and research. Numerous prizes were won by students in various external contests and exhibitions, reflecting on the high academic standards and practical value of students. The department has an impressive research output in selected technical areas, including multimedia signal processing, power electronics, nonlinear circuits and systems, and microelectronics and communications.
ProgrammesThe department offers full-time and part-time taught courses leading to the awards of Higher Diploma, Bachelor degrees, Postgraduate Diploma and Master's degrees, in electronic engineering. Research programmes are also offered by the department leading to awards of up to the doctoral level. Programmes bearing the same title of awards reach comparable standards irrespective of the mode of attendance. The two Bachelor degrees in electronic engineering (full-time and part-time) offered by the department have been repeatedly accredited by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, U.K., the last five-year accreditation being attested in April 1998.
The department also co-hosts two full-time Bachelor degree programmes, with the Department of Computing, in the Information Technology (IT) disciplines. In addition, two Higher Diploma programmes in IT related disciplines are offered jointly with the Department of Computing.
TeachingQuality teaching is the department's first priority. Incorporating modern curricula and the latest educational technologies, the department provides the most up-to-date technical and professional training to students. Taught programmes, while primarily designed to cope with the dynamic and rapidly advancing profession of electronic engineering, provide adequate basic scientific training for the pursuit of high-level developmental and innovative research work. An Advisory Committee, composed of well-represented figures of the local industry, provides invaluable and constructive advice to the department for continuous upgrade of the curricula to suit the changing needs of the local industry. Effective quality assurance systems are in place to constantly refine details of the operation of the programmes so as to ensure the main education objectives are met.
The department's teaching activities are organized into four broad technical areas, namely,
Accordingly, staff members are grouped into four sections, each corresponding to one of the above broad technical areas. Subjects taught by the Multimedia and Signal Processing Section include signal processing fundamentals, multimedia applications, image and speech processing, video technology, etc. Subjects taught by the Computer and Intelligent Systems Section include, inter alia, digital systems, computer programming, computer architecture, linear systems and control theory, instrumentations, fuzzy control, artificial intelligence, software engineering, information systems, and distributed systems. Teaching areas of the Circuits and Microelectronics Section include, inter alia, circuit theory, analogue electronics, integrated circuits, solid state physics, power electronics, computer-aided design of circuits, electromagnetic compatibility and product design. Finally, the Communications Engineering Section is responsible for the teaching of, inter alia, communication fundamentals, propagation, RF and microwaves, digital communications, information and codings, data communications, and wireless communications.
Research
Since the 1980's, the department has been rapidly expanding its capability in high-level research and development. While applied research is the department's major focus, fundamental work has also been actively pursued by staff members. After more than a decade of diligent work, the department has established itself as major contributors in some selected research areas.
Research centres and groups have been formed within the department to encourage collective efforts in pursuit of large scale projects and to promote collaborations with external research bodies. At present, the department hosts two research centres, namely,
The former has been recognized by the University as being in an Area of Strategic Development (ASD) and the latter is a joint venture with the Department of Electrical Engineering. In addition the department has two other research groups, namely,
Apart from the research areas mentioned above, the department has impressive research outputs in the following areas:
The university has been supportive to the department's research, with considerable amount of funds allocated to the department for general research expenses as well as for the provision of scholarships and stipends. In addition to the university's support, the department generates its own research funds through successful bidding of major external research grants, the annual earmarked grants from the University Grants Council being most notable.
Industry Collaboration and ConsultancyThe department has many industry partners who are either participating directly in some collaborative research projects through the university's teaching company programmes, or are providing financial and/or material support to students' projects. The department has presently in operation 10 teaching company projects focusing applied research and product development which are of substantial commercial value. The department have also received constant support from many local manufacturers who provide technical assistance to and supply major electronic components for students' projects.
Given the strong expertise of individual staff members in a wide range of engineering applications, the department operates consultancy projects, usually on individual basis and sometimes on group basis, providing technical assistance to local companies and public utilities for solving specific hands-on engineering problems. Areas of specialism include product design for electromagnetic compatibility, consumer appliances, software development, RF systems, audio-visual systems, ASIC design, etc.
FacilitiesThe department is in possession of a number of teaching and research laboratories, covering areas of basic electronics, communications, computers, digital signal processing, media & networking, control and instrumentation, radio & TV, power electronics, engineering projects and microelectronics technology. Additional resources and facilities are available in the following main research areas: digital signal processing, image and video picture processing, computer architecture and parallel processing, intelligent systems, robotics, vision systems and automatic testing equipment, multi-media technologies, optical and microwave communications, computer-aided design of electronic systems (including power electronics and VLSI design tools) and microelectronics.
The department also has a variety of computing facilities including SPARC workstations (1000, 20, 10 and 2), HP Apollo workstations, minicomputers, microcomputer development systems, transputer development systems, mono and full-colour image processing systems, DSP facilities (Texas Instruments TMS 320 and 56000 families), ATM switches, frame-relay platforms, PBXs, logic analyzers, microwave equipment and network analyzers covering 0.1MHz to 18GHz, local area networks and bridge routers, DEGEM DiGicom digital communication experiment setup, digital analysis system, dc and low frequency calibration equipment, automatic testing equipment (ATE), VXI equipment screened room, gain-phase meters, spectrum analyzers, specialized TV equipment, secondary standards and precision instruments, B-H curve tracer, clean room, furnaces, sputterer, plasma etcher, mask aligner, thick and thin film equipment.
Updated 30 August 2004
