Altera, Peking U open joint EDA/SOPC Lab

Altera Corp. has opened its 66th joint lab and training center (JLTC) with Peking University China. The Joint EDA/SOPC Lab at the Peking University School of Software and Microelectronics (Wuxi), Jiangsu Province, China, is part of Altera's worldwide University Program. Altera's JLTCs are equipped with the latest Altera Quartus II design software and a set of Altera DE2-70 development kits to aid professors in conducting hands-on training with students.

The university will use the lab for courses in digital logic circuits, HDL language, computer principles, principles of TV and modern digital system design featuring Altera's FPGA development environment. The lab will also be used to help design the electronics curriculum used for graduate and postgraduate studies.

"With the establishment of this joint lab and with the cooperation in teaching, project researching and training, we will be able to take full advantage of the Altera relationship with Peking University," said Xin Zhang, dean of the school of Software and Microelectronics at Peking University. "This new lab boosts our university's enterprise cooperation to a new depth, which will enable us to make more contributions to the development of China SOPC."

In conjunction with the opening of the JLTC, Altera invited key professors from the other 65 JLTCs to attend the opening ceremony and participate in a three-day training on Altera products and technology.

Investing in students
"Through our University Program, we cultivate designers and support innovation around the world by working with professors and lecturers to help teach students about digital technology," said Stephen Brown, worldwide director of the University Program for Altera. "Universities and students in China are very important for the future of the electronics industry, and we are proud to have a world-leading educational program in China. Altera invests heavily in universities and students worldwide, and has helped to create hundreds of university labs in a number of countries over the past few years."

Altera provides a variety of teaching materials, including a full commercial version of the Quartus II software tools, teaching hardware in the form of laboratory boards, tutorials that introduce students and lecturers to Altera's tools and hardware, and "ready-to-teach" laboratory exercises that can be employed in university-level digital logic and computer organization courses. A hardware donation program helps institutions that have qualified to equip their teaching laboratories at minimal cost, and software and intellectual property is donated by Altera. In addition to providing support tools to professors, instructors and lecturers at the lowest cost, students can take advantage of many free offerings, and also use University Program resources to support what they are learning in school. These resources are available at www.altera.com/education/univ/unv-index.html.