At Southampton, we strive to ensure a balance between theory and practice. We believe that all our graduates should leave with not only an exceptional understanding and ability in state-of-the-art theory and principles, but also that they should be able to practically apply the theory to design and build real electrical and electronic systems. Our flagship lab programme is unrivalled, and gives our students opportunities to apply the theory they learn in lectures, to learn through doing, and gain the skills that are essential to becoming a successful engineer.
In the second year, the focus of labs changes to being able to apply the skills that our students have learnt to design their own solutions to loosely specified problems. One example is the IC Design exercise, a group project in which our students design and simulate their own integrated circuit (or 'chip'). Later in the year, they return to the lab to find that their 'chips' have been fabricated, and must probe their silicon wafers to test and evaluate their designs. This project provides a one-of-a-kind experience for our students, seeing the design of a digital chip all the way through from specification to test - and they get to take away the computer chip they've designed!