Electronics Engineering Ph.D. Qualifying Exam consists of written and oral exam parts as explained in detail below.
Ph.D. Qualifying Written Exam
Students must pass Ph.D Qualifying written exams from three packages: (1) EE Fundamentals, (2) Area Fundamentals, (3) Advanced Topic Areas. Each package is equivalent to one FENS subject area.
Students are strongly advised to receive the consent of their thesis advisors and when needed contact the Graduate Advisor/PhD Committee representative of the EE program before taking the exams.
While EE Fundamentals package is mandatory to each student from the EE program, the Area Fundamentals or Advanced Topics area (but not both) may be replaced by a PhD Qual subject offered by other FENS programs, which is subject to the consent of his/her advisor.
Those students in other FENS PhD programs (non EE students) can take any one of the three packages: EE Fundamentals, Area Fundamentals and Advanced Topic Areas as their subject area. However, non-EE students are strongly advised to receive the consent of their thesis advisors and also contact the Graduate Advisor/PhD Committee representative of their own program before taking the exams.
(1) EE Fundamentals
The EE Fundamentals part of the exam will consist of an equal number of questions from each of the following four areas. Students must select and submit only five questions consisting of, one question from each of the four areas and one question from any of the four areas. A sample selection is: Electronic Circuits (1), Signals (2), Basic Math (1), Electromagnetics (1).
- Electronic Circuits (ENS 203)
- Signals (ENS 211)
- Engineering Mathematics (Math 201, Math 203)
- Electromagnetics (ENS 201)
(2) Area Fundamentals
Students should choose two of the following Area Fundamental Subjects while signing up on the EE-PhD Qual Exam Inquiry/ Information Sheet and will receive four questions from each of their chosen subjects to work during the Qual Exam. Students may work on all problems in their chosen subjects; however they must select and submit four questions to be graded from their chosen subjects, only. Any questions submitted from subject areas, other than the chosen two areas, will not be considered for grading.
- Communications
- Signal Processing
- Integrated Electronics/Circuits
- Digital Systems
- Semiconductor Devices
(3) Advanced Topics
Students should choose two of the following Advanced Topics while signing up on the EE-PhD Qual Exam Inquiry/ Information Sheet and will receive four questions from each of their chosen subjects to work during the Qual Exam. Students may work on all problems in their chosen subjects; however they must select and submit only four questions to be graded from their chosen subjects, only. Any questions submitted from subject areas, other than the chosen two areas, will not be considered for grading.
- VLSI
- Fabrication and MEMS
- Optics/Photonics
- Acoustics
- Advanced Semiconductor Physics and Devices
- RF Microelectronics - Circuit Design
- Antennas/Microwaves
- Computer Vision (or Digital Image Processing)
- Audio and Speech Processing
- Networking
- Wireless Communication
- Information Theory
- Detection & Estimation Theory / Pattern Recognition
Ph.D. Qualifying Oral Exam, Timeline and Evaluation
For EE students
If a student failed in one or more package(s), he/she has to take only the package(s) that he/she failed or replace his/her failed package(s), except EE Fundamentals, from other FENS Qual Subjects.
After the written exam, there will be an oral exam. The oral exam can be taken after a student passes from all written tests.
For non EE students:
Students can take any of the three packages above and their affiliated programs will be informed about the grade(s) of the students.