Goals and Contents

Embedded systems offer challenging opportunities to young designers, both by interweaving technologies such as microelectronics, computer science and telecommunications, and by focusing on the most advanced applications. This Specialization is offered by ALaRI, an Advanced Learning and Research Institute, within USI's Faculty of Informatics. The main research areas of ALaRI are hardware/software design of embedded micro-systems, with specific relation to high-performance applications. Through its collaborative relations with Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the Zurich Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland), as well as its active research programs (supported by European funding and by the Swiss Science Foundation), ALaRI has been able to bridge the gap between information (software) technologies and electronic (engineering) technologies, exploring cutting-edge topics and addressing its research toward pragmatic industrial problems.

Aware of the real need for a cross-disciplinary approach to education, ALaRI equips talented students with a unique body of knowledge about the multi-interdisciplinary area of embedded systems. Training includes interpersonal skills indispensable in today's industry, such as team work, complex project management and market sensitivity.

On this basis, ALaRI has met the challenge of providing training and research opportunities, stressing the most relevant added-value features in embedded systems.

The ALaRI teaching programme is characterised by two distinct features:

• cooperation between university and industry
• interdisciplinarity through design laboratories and projects

The Scientific Director for this Master is Prof. Maria Giovanna Sami.