The cultivation of embedded talents where is the difficulty? The President of Huaqing Vision expressed his views

The cultivation of embedded talents where is the difficulty? The President of Huaqing Vision expressed his views

Introduction

In the early years, colleges and universities have indeed cultivated a large number of embedded system teachers, but many of them have long been out of the line of scientific research, and the teachers engaged in embedded scientific research work, often busy with heavy scientific research work, it is difficult to go deep into the basic curriculum of embedded system teaching reform. The resulting situation is that, on the one hand, graduates are struggling to find the right job; On the other hand, companies complain that they cannot find much-needed embedded talent. As a useful supplement to colleges and universities, more than more than 10 years ago, a number of professional institutions have been engaged in embedded training, tireless intentions to create "elite talent." This kind of training targeted strong, immediate, but embedded learning after all, not overnight, after the Devil training Crash "talent" really can do the actual work? What kind of embedded talents are needed in the enterprise, what are the difficulties in the cultivation of embedded talents, and are there any effective ways to deal with them?

Industry voice

Embedded Systems Fraternity Secretary General He Xiaoqing

At present, the difficulty of embedded teaching is that the embedded technology, which is represented by MCU and embedded processor, is developing rapidly, and the teachers, courseware and experiment environment are difficult to follow up synchronously. With the advent of the IoT concept, wireless technologies such as ZIGBEE, WiFi and Bluetooth, and MEMS sensor technology, these original self-contained embedded systems have become intelligent networked systems, so the traditional 8051 microcontroller teaching and "Arm+linux" embedded teaching needs to be reformed. At the same time, with the continuous expansion of embedded teaching content, teaching and experimental hours also appear to be stretched. Although Pocket Labs can help students finish their homework in the spare time, various types of embedded and IoT competitions can improve the quality of some students, but how to improve the overall ability of a group of students remains a problem.

Embedded teaching and talent training is a highly applied work, not only for universities and training institutions, but also for embedded and IoT enterprises, industry associations and technology media. Embedded Systems Association and the China Software Industry Association Embedded System Branch, since 2000 has held several embedded and IoT Education Symposium, Organization of college teachers face to side experience exchange, combing ideas, find countermeasures, the embedded teaching reform has played a positive role in promoting.

Huaqing Vision Education Group founder Tiju

When it comes to training institutions, many people are more or less biased, and today I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the experience of the training industry for more than 10 years.

As we all know, the training institutions, especially my vocational education, compared to the traditional education, its advantage lies in the rapid and practical development of the curriculum system, as well as practical research and development experience of professional teachers. Undoubtedly, from the original inscrutable professional embedded equipment, to now full of imagination, layer out of intelligent hardware, embedded technology has long been beyond our imagination. Faced with many challenges, only mastered the latest and most practical technology, can calmly be competent in embedded research and development positions.

Huaqing Vision Education Group has been working with the major chip manufacturers to maintain a good relationship, so you can get a lot of the latest technical information in advance. From a year ago to a major upgrade to now two major upgrades a year, the course upgrade has become routine daily work. Research and Development center of dozens of people's team, its main job is to track the latest technology hotspots, and quickly reflected in the course content and experimental platform.

"Interest learning" is an important principle of our curriculum design. Embedded products are not the former "cold" professional equipment, combat training in the vibrant "cool" products to our students are attractive enough, for example, students can do their own smart TV, tablet computers, smart bracelet, smart watches, even four-axis aircraft and Smart car, These can directly inspire students a strong learning interest and motivation.

Our source is mainly a first-line senior research and development engineers, through the systematic teaching skills training to become a professional lecturer, they have a good first-line research and development experience, which is very important for the students, at the same time, they are very familiar with the company's employment needs, know how to train students to become the company needs technical personnel. Of course, we also have certain requirements for students, before the registration will be a rigorous professional basic testing, only through the test, to participate in professional course learning.

Dr. Sungarchen, Datang Telecom IC Innovation Center

Now enterprise refers to the embedded development work generally refers to embedded software programming, focus on the drive and system software two levels, with ARM processor embedded software programming as the mainstream. The drive level needs to interact with the hardware circuit, generally in the peripheral interface data provided by the manufacturer to achieve the function of timing, etc. the system software level needs to run and transplant embedded operating system, especially the implementation of multi-task scheduling system is more complex.

At present, the major of electronic information in colleges and universities will come into contact with the circuit structure and C language, covering the driving level, and the computer majors will come into contact with the knowledge of the system architecture, covering the work of the system software level. However, these two kinds of professional graduates in contact with the actual work is not very well, the main reason lies in the school's experimental curriculum setup. In fact, in the course of the experiment, even if the students only drive a simple A/D converter or D/a converter, the whole embedded development work will form the concept of methodology, extended to a variety of applications can easily get started. But in fact, when the school buys the embedded Development Board the vendor will provide the source code, the student just ran the source in the Development Board, but did not go deep to the development level, therefore causes completely has not the methodology the concept.

Engineering and technical personnel in the field of electronic information need to constantly learn and update their knowledge, so enterprises are more interested in the learning ability of engineers. Larger enterprises, generally willing to receive learning ability of fresh graduates, so as to develop professional skills and team feelings; smaller enterprises are more willing to pay a large price to absorb experienced engineers in order to quickly launch products. In relatively niche areas (such as aerospace systems), high standards of real-time operating systems are often required, and such development costs are high, so that universities and training institutions invest relatively little in the real-time operating system sector.

Professor Chen Wenzhi, Vice Dean, School of Computer Science and technology, Zhejiang University

Embedded systems have distinctive features that at least bring together a wide range of disciplines such as electrical, electronic, computer, control, mechanical, industrial design, and are highly integrated with application requirements. In the aspects of the key content selection, knowledge structure design, teaching or training methods and practical training of the embedded system, the principle that the education sector and the industry generally agree is based on the practical application demand, combined with the advantage of the subject, and using the experience and foundation of the research or product research and development of the teacher in the embedded field. To carry out the personnel training work.

If based on the experimental platform to organize the curriculum system, embedded talent training generally have two ideas: first, based on some kind of off-the-shelf Development Board, teaching embedded development-related technology, such as selected arm, Intel, TI and other development Board as the experimental platform, focusing on platform and processor features, Expansion interface Board Development technology, operating system core streamlining optimization technology, other system software development optimization technology, as well as application development technology, and so on, the second is to SOC as the guiding ideology, not based on ready-made platform, but deep into the lower level of hardware design and implementation technology, and then stretched upward to the operating system, system software, application software. The two ideas do not have good or bad points, relatively speaking, the latter on the teacher's requirements are higher, students also feel more difficult.

If according to the teaching method to subdivide, then the embedded system teaching generally has two kinds of ways: first, "Bottom up" (that is, from the local to the overall teaching method), teaches the student some basic, the common knowledge, then layers upward, teaches the student embedded system Comprehensive development technology; second, "Topdown" ( That is, from the global to the local teaching method), often use case-driven model, first from the global demand, start each technology teaching. Similarly, the two methods also have no merits and demerits, can be selected according to the specific situation of one or two combinations.

Although after years of practice, embedded system talent training has accumulated a lot of experience, gradually into the right track. However, with a variety of hardware and software technology and development tools, education and teaching methods continue to improve, the demand for talent more complex, applicable, embedded system talent training is facing a new round of challenges. The rise of the "Internet of Things", as well as "Industry 4.0", "Web +", or "New hardware Era", "Maker" and other new concepts, new technologies, new architectures are constantly emerging, all of which makes the embedded system talent training faces more difficulties.

First of all, the embedded system product form further evolution, the technology involved more and more complex, cross and in-depth, to the embedded system training system of knowledge structure reorganization and update brings new difficulties. Therefore, the talent training of embedded system should be more interdisciplinary than before, pay more attention to the fusion of new technology and the vertical integration of hardware and software knowledge.

Secondly, the embedded system occupies a higher position in the process of the formation of entrepreneurial innovation Eco-environment, which brings new difficulties to the orientation of talent training target. Therefore, the talent training of embedded system should pay more attention to innovate application development than before, pay more attention to excavate students ' innovative thought and inspire students ' creative inspiration. The creator space based on Arduino, Inteledison or Pcduino deserves attention. Thirdly, the improvement of teachers ' learning margin structure and the upgrading of teachers ' individual comprehensive ability also face new difficulties. In the new normal of embedded system technology, the former great talent teachers have been in the front line of teaching for a long time, too late to keep up with the industry dynamics, gradually divorced from the development of new technology. The benign closed loop of the interaction between scientific research and teaching is not yet mature, therefore, the talent training of embedded system should pay more attention to the integration with the industry than before, only in this way can we cultivate the embedded talents that meet the needs of the industry.

Finally, the connotation and denotation of embedded system should be re-located. The education sector and the industry should explore together how to better develop the embedded system talents required by the industry.

Exclusive view

No matter how the times change, embedded systems are always an indispensable cornerstone, but people who are at different stages of application development are often unable to gain insight. In recent years, embedded particularly hot, the major semiconductor manufacturers have strengthened the concept of embedded, the introduction of various types of embedded products. The embedded market scenery is boundless, naturally also aroused more people's attention and interest. Embedded system has an infinite field, requires a multi-level, comprehensive, primary, middle and senior talent training system. Higher vocational, high-level, tertiary and higher engineering institutes should have different training objectives and curriculum system. At first, the embedded system adopted a single single-chip microcomputer-related training mechanism. Later, the computer, microelectronics integration technology intervention, the situation has changed greatly. In colleges and universities set up a software institute, the Internet of things, embedded systems, such as professional training mechanism, so that the embedded system of high-end talent training has a place to stay. The rapid expansion of the early single-chip microcomputer, indeed prompted the university to cultivate a large number of embedded system teachers, but these teachers, many teachers have long been divorced from scientific research, the pace of curriculum update is difficult to keep pace with the development of embedded systems. And the teachers engaged in the research work of embedded system, because of the heavy research work and the training of postgraduates, it is difficult to intervene in the teaching reform of embedded system Basic course. The basic teaching reform of embedded system is not overnight, and the contradiction between scientific research and basic teaching reform of embedded system undoubtedly makes this situation more difficult to improve.

Embedded system is the most rapidly changing frontier technology field in IT industry, and the difficulty of talent training in embedded system is how to train the talents of embedded system that can adapt to various changes quickly. In fact, the segmentation of embedded system courses into basic classes (relatively unchanged basic knowledge) and application classes (tracking cutting-edge technology application knowledge) are two parts, perhaps a way to solve the problem. Colleges and universities take the general basic theory study as the main, the higher vocational education, the high specialized two kinds of curriculum balance, the training structure emphasizes the application class course training. The responsibilities of colleges and universities should focus on cultivating bigger picture and post-strong embedded talents, rather than embedded craftsmen. For the long-term development, enterprises should give graduates a more sufficient space for development as far as possible.

The cultivation of embedded talents where is the difficulty? The President of Huaqing Vision expressed his views