M.S. Admissions

Application Process

You should submit your applications online at https://research.iitm.ac.in

Selection Process

The selection is a two-stage process for each thematic area of research. For the sake of convenience, we use some short keywords to identify each of these areas listed below.

Thematic Area Name	Short Keyword	Faculty
COMMUNICATIONS AND SIGNAL PROCESSING	EE1	View Faculty
POWER SYSTEMS, MACHINES & POWER ELECTRONICS	EE2	View Faculty
MICRO ELECTRONICS & MEMS	EE3	View Faculty
ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS & INSTRUMENTATION	EE4	View Faculty
RF & PHOTONICS	EE5	View Faculty
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS & SYSTEMS	EE6	View Faculty
CONTROL & OPTIMIZATION	EE7	View Faculty

Important Notes

You should indicate your preferences while applying for the program
If you are unsure about your interests, you could choose multiple research themes without any fear
While the above themes are just indicative of our research work, we usually cross several themes ourselves
It may not be uncommon to work on the interface of two research themes

Selection Stages

Written Test: You may need to write a 1-hour test that will probe your fundamentals in different themes as per your application
Interview: If you are successful in the written test, you will be called for an interview
Final Selection: We make our final offers of admission based on both the written test and interview

Syllabi for Written Tests

EE1 – COMMUNICATION AND SIGNAL PROCESSING

Reference Books:

Signals and Systems by Oppenheim and Willsky, Second Edition, Chapters 1 to 10
Discrete-time Signal Processing by Oppenheim and Schafer, Second Edition, Chapters 1 to 5 and Chapter 8
Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes by Papoulis and Pillai, Fourth Edition, Chapters 1 to 5
Linear Algebra and its Applications by Gilbert Strang, Fourth Edition, Chapters 1 to 5 (OR) Linear Algebra and its Applications by David C Lay, Third Edition, Chapters 1 to 6

Note: Solving all example problems and exercises from the above books is strongly recommended as preparation for the entrance exam.

Sample Questions: Previous years question papers

Suggested Video Lectures:

EE2 – POWER SYSTEMS, MACHINES and POWER ELECTRONICS

Topics Covered:

Power Electronics: Operation of buck, boost and buck boost converters, power semiconductor devices and characteristics, operation of inverters – 180 degree mode and SPWM operation – single phase and three phase, bridge converters – single and three phase
Electrical Machines: Theory and operation of single and three phase transformers, dc machines – separately excited, series and compound machines, induction machines – squirrel cage and wound rotor, cylindrical rotor synchronous machines. Methods of speed control of dc and induction machines
Power Systems: Transmission lines, Series and shunt compensation, Per‐unit quantities, Bus admittance matrix, Gauss-Seidel and Newton-Raphson load flow methods, Voltage and Frequency control, Power factor correction, Symmetrical components, Symmetrical and unsymmetrical fault analysis, Principles of over‐current, differential and distance protection; Circuit breakers, System stability concepts, Equal area criterion
Control Systems: Transfer function of a dynamic system, positive and negative feedback, transient and steady state response, Routh-Hurwitz and Nyquist criteria, Bode plots, Root loci, Stability analysis, lead, lag and lead-lag compensation, P, PI and PID controllers, State space model, State transition matrix, eigen values
High Voltage: Generation and Measurement of High voltages, Insulation Failure mechanisms
Instrumentation: Instrument transformers, Protective CTs/PTs, measurement of power and energy, types of energy meters and their operation, telemetering, remote terminal units, Data Acquisition systems, trivector meters and event/disturbance recorders

Reference Books:

Cooper Helfrick, "Electrical Instrumentation and Measuring Techniques", Prentice Hall India, 1986
Grainger and Stevenson, Power System Analysis, Tata McGraw Hill
Ned Mohan and Tore Undeland, Power Electronics, John Wiley
Katsuhiko Ogata, Modern Control Engineering, Prentice Hall, 2010
M.S. Naidu and V.Kamaraju, High voltage Engineering, McGraw Hill
Nagrath and Kothari, Electric Machines, McGraw Hill

Sample Questions: Previous years question papers

EE3 – MICRO ELECTRONICS & MEMS

Course Content:

Solid state devices – Crystals and Electronic grade materials; Formation of energy bands in solids; Concept of hole, Density of states and Fermi level; Intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors; Equilibrium Carrier concentration; Direct and indirect semiconductors; Recombination and Generation of carriers, Carrier transport; Drift and Diffusion; Equations of state; Continuity and Poisson equation; pn junction; energy band diagram, derivation of dc and ac characteristics; Bipolar junction transistors; physics and characteristics MOS capacitor; MOSFET- physics, characteristics and modeling; Other devices: LEDs, Solar cells, metal-semiconductor junctions, solid state memories

Reference Books:

Donald A. Neamen, “Semiconductor Physics and Devices- Basic Principles,” McGraw Hill, 2021
Robert Pierret, “Semiconductor Device Fundamentals,” Pearson Education, 2006
Jesús A. del Alamo, “Integrated Microelectronic Devices: Physics and Modeling,” Pearson

Video Lectures

Note: Solving all example problems and exercises from the above reference books is strongly recommended. The written test will contain a part on basic engineering mathematics.

Sample Questions: Previous years question papers

EE4 – ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS & INSTRUMENTATION

Topics Covered:

Analog and digital circuits-filters, amplifiers, log amplifiers, AD/DA converters
Principles of electric and magnetic measurements
Bio-medical instrumentation-electronic systems for bio-medical application

Reference Books:

M. Mano, Digital Design, 3rd Ed, Prentice-Hall, 2001
Cooper, H., and Albert D. Helfrick. Modern Electronic Instrumentation and Measurement Techniques, 2005
Northrop, Robert B. Introduction to Instrumentation and Measurements. CRC Press, 2005
Franco, Sergio. Design with Operational Amplifiers and Analog Integrated Circuits. McGraw-Hill, 2001

Sample Questions: Sample Question Paper 1

EE5 – RF & PHOTONICS

Topics Covered:

Electromagnetics: Vector analysis, Static electric and magnetic fields, Poissons, Laplace equations, method of images, steady electric currents, Time varying fields and Maxwells equations, Plane electromagnetic waves in free space, Reflection & transmission off an interface, Snell's law, Rectangular Waveguides, Parallel plate/Two-wire/Coaxial transmission lines and Hertzian/Dipole antennas
Solid State Electronic Devices and Circuits: Holes and electrons, Wave function of an electron, Density of states, Band diagram, Semiconductor Diodes, transistors, Operational Amplifiers (ideal/practical, op-amp circuits), Noise in circuits
Signal Processing: Fourier Series, Fourier Transforms, Frequency Response, Sampling Theorem, Causality, stability, linearity and time invariance of filters, FIR vs IIR filters, group delay in filters

Suggested Books:

Engineering Electromagnetics by Hayt and Buck
Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory by Robert Boylestead
Solid State Electronic Devices by Streetman and Banerjee, and Louis Nashelsky
Signals and Systems by Oppenheim and Willsky

NPTEL Lectures: Electromagnetics, Networks and Systems, Solid State Devices and Analog Circuits

Sample Questions: Previous years question papers

EE6 – INTEGRATED CIRCUITS & SYSTEMS

Topics Covered:

Electrical Networks: Hayt and Kemmerly, Engineering Circuit Analysis, McGraw Hill, 6/e. Chapters 1-10
Analog electronics: Sergio Franco, Design with operational amplifiers and analog ICs, Tata McGraw Hill. Chapters 1-5, 8-10 OR Sedra and Smith, Microelectronic Circuits, Oxford University Press, USA. (various editions). Part I, chapters 1,6 in Part II
Digital systems and Design Automation: Topics: Number systems, combinational and sequential circuits, finite state machines, basic computer organization; data structures and algorithms

Reference Books:

Morris Mano, Digital Design, Prentice Hall, 3rd edition, 2001
Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in C, Mark Weiss

Note: The research areas in digital systems expect supporting background areas including algorithms and data structures, probability and random processes (for design automation), signal processing (for architecture exploration). Although no specific texts are specified in these areas, basic undergraduate level knowledge of these topics is assumed and will be tested.

Sample Questions: Previous years question papers

EE7 – CONTROL & OPTIMIZATION

Topics Covered:

Control systems: Modelling of dynamical systems, equilibrium points, linearization, transfer functions, positive and negative feedback, transient and steady-state response, Routh-Hurwitz and Nyquist criteria, Bode plots, root loci, stability analysis, lead and lag compensation, PID controllers, state-space model, state transition matrix, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, Jordan decomposition, controllability and observability, pole placement
Mathematics: Vector space, linear dependence and independence of vectors, rank and kernel of a matrix, ordinary differential equations, continuity and differentiability of real-valued functions, basic axioms of probability

Reference Books:

Modern Control Engineering by Katsuhiko Ogata, Prentice-Hall of India Pvt.Ltd
Modern Control Systems by Richard C. Dorf and Robert H. Bishop, Prentice-Hall
Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Erwin Kreyszig, Wiley Publications
Higher Engineering Mathematics by B.S. Grewal, Khanna Publishers
An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations by Earl A. Coddington, Dover Publications

NPTEL Lectures: Control System video lectures

Sample Questions: Sample Question Paper

Finding Prospective Guides

For searching for prospective guides, go through our Faculty Directory page to filter by research stream.

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Apply Online at research.iitm.ac.in