Paper presented at FIE'98 (Tempe, USA. November, 1998)

M.D. Valdés¹, M.J. Moure¹, M.A. Valdés², L. Rodríguez¹ and E. Mandado^1
1Institute of Applied Electronics "Pedro Barrié de la Maza". Department of Electronic Technology. University of Vigo. Spain.
² Department of Mathematics. Central University of Las Villas. Cuba.

Complex Technologies are very difficult to explain because they include a lot of related concepts comprising a large number of non-excluding or excluding subconcepts. Usually, complex technologies education is based on the analysis of specific devices of several manufacturers, but this method is not suitable because it gives only a particular insight. This situation demands a new methodology that summarizes all the characteristics of a particular technology and makes a dynamic link between the related concepts possible.

From this perspective this paper describes an original method for the characterization of complex technologies and proposes the hypermedia technique as a suitable solution for its practical implementation. The method has been applied for teaching Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs), a very complex technology that constitutes one of the most dynamic areas of Microelectronics.