Embedded System Education Curriculum Using TI SimpleLink Microcontrollers in Engineering Technology

In Engineering Technology programs, it is typical to find that microcontroller and embedded system education is selected as one of the key areas. This is relevant to the increased demands in a shorter and faster paced research and development in electronics systems design. In order to meet the functional requirements for the electronics systems, one of the typical choices is to use a general-purpose microcontroller, sensors, and communication modules. In embedded system education, the topics related to these components can be covered. The Engineering Technology program at Texas A&M University has been educating students through embedded C programming, microcontroller architecture, and embedded system software courses. The program also offers a technical elective on an embedded real time software development course and a graduate level intelligent embedded system design course. Various models of Texas Instruments (TI) microcontrollers have been previously used in the courses in the embedded system integration track. However, from the Fall of 2019, an MSP432 microcontroller (MCU) was selected and has been used as a common platform throughout the majority of the embedded system courses. An MSP432 MCU has an ARM Cortex M4F core and MSP430 compatible peripherals. Students learn about the register level C programming, microcontroller architecture, and ARM assembly language programming skills and knowledge. They also learn about high level of programming using TI driver library and TI real-time operating system (RTOS) in this embedded system integration track. An MSP432 MCU is one of the SimpleLink family platforms. The SimpleLink family platforms make the development cycle faster and easier to meet the various requirements. The SimpleLink family platforms are currently active microcontrollers and microprocessors. In the Engineering Technology at Texas A&M University, the courses in the embedded system integration track have adopted an MSP432 MCU as a common platform. Students can choose to use other SimpleLink platforms for their capstone projects because their knowledge is still relevant and there is a high chance of reusing their code within the SimpleLink family platforms. This paper presents the details of the embedded system track and this transitional progress and students’ learning throughout this embedded system course curriculum for Fall of 2019 and Spring 2020.