Student
Gerald studied for his university of applied sciences (HBO) Bachelor’s in IT. He is now studying for his Master’s in Embedded Systems at the University of Twente. He is not yet sure about what he wants to do after he graduates: “I am sure there are plenty of jobs available in the Netherlands, but maybe I will look for a job elsewhere to broaden my perspective.”
What I really like about the programme is the cooperation between the 3 technical universities in the Netherlands. I liked the ability to choose different courses from multiple universities. Especially because Embedded Systems is a field with many different aspects, so the range of options to choose from made it easier for me to add a lot of diversity to my programme.. The key factor for me in choosing the University of Twente was the location and the size of the university. I enjoy the fact that it is small, giving you more chances to interact with the lecturing staff and be part of the research group.
For the Design of Digital Systems course , we had to use Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) to implement a processor on a field-programmable array. First, we had to define exactly which instructions we wanted to support in our design, as well as defining what they do exactly. We used these definitions to create a high-level behavioural design which we used to verify our actual implementation. The design was based on picking the right combinations of algorithms that worked for the design we had in mind, and separation of data path and control.