EE 552  High Level Digital ASIC Design Using CAD

Winter  Term  (2003w)       last updated 2003-2-12
 
Course Resources Project
Calendar Description Library Overview
Marking Textbooks Due Dates
Lab Assignments Student Application Notes Student Application Notes
General Course Info Project Titles Project Proposal
Newsgroup Past Projects Project Specification
Manufacturers' Info Resource Requirements
VHDL examples Simulation Documentation
Project Ideas Complete Design & Test
NSERC scholarships Final Report
UA7k board documentation Oral Presentation
UP1 board test
Use the class newsgroup ualberta.courses.ee.552 to ask questions, answer questions, or find project partners.
Use email for questions of a confidential nature.
Professor Duncan Elliott 492-5357 ECERF W2-036
TAs Craig Joly
Kris Breen

 

General Course Info

Lectures Tues & Thurs 9:30-10:50 in ETLC e1-018
The period will wrap up with a seminar or discussion.

Office hours

CAD lab in ETLC e5-013 Fri 2-5pm
Hardware lab in ETLC e5-001 (later in term)
Students are free to use these lab facilities these rooms are not scheduled for another course.

EE 480 / EE 635 is a prerequisite for EE 552.  While exemption may be granted in individual cases, lectures assume a knowledge of EE 480 material, including VHDL.  (I will give all graduate students an exemption from this prerequisite, but please talk to me first.)  If you haven't used VHDL, plan to do some extra reading and lab work.

In this course, you will develop the necessary skills to design complex digital ASICs (application specific integrated circuits) and systems on a chip (SoC) using CAD synthesis tools.  Working in a group, you and your partners will design and implement a significant digital system using field programmable gate arrays and complex programmable logic devices.

Outline

Marking

Labs 15 dates
Final Exam  30 exam period
Project 55
Application Notes 10 (Mar 4) Mar 25 (electronic submission)
Proposal 5 Jan 21
Specification 5 Feb 3
Resource  Requirements &
Interface Demonstration
5 Feb 25
Simulation Documentation 5 Mar 11
Oral Presentation 10 Apr 1,3,8 (randomly assigned)
Final Report 15 Mar 27
All lab and project submissions are due by 3:50 pm in the EE 552 assignment box outside of ECERF w2-023.  Oversized final reports should be taken to Sylvia in ECERF W2-023, for her to timestamp and place in my mailbox.  Late submissions will be penalized 10% of the assigned mark per school day.  Submissions will not normally be re-graded more than two weeks after the first day these have been returned in class.

The following calculators are permitted for examinations in this course: faculty approved programmable calculators, faculty approved non-programmable calculators, instructor approved calculators, instructor approved abacuses (if used quietly).  Programmable calculators will probably offer little or no advantage over non-programmable calculators.

Marks are periodically posted on my office window.

Grade Determination Method

See section 23.4 in the university calendar.  In this course, raw marks will be calculated up until after the final exam.  The resulting overall percentage mark will then be converted for each student to a grade on the nine point scale.  A standard expected distribution of grades, which is provided by the Faculty of Engineering, will be used as a rough guideline when mapping overall marks to grades.  Absolute merit of the work will also be taken into consideration.

Code of Student Behaviour

Refer to section 26 of the university calendar and the Code of Student Behaviour for a comprehensive discussion of what constitutes improper conduct for members of the University community and for a description of disciplinary procedures.  In particular, note the definitions of plagiarism and cheating and the penalties for academic offenses.
 
 

Library Resources

These readings are available for short-term loan from Cameron Library:
 
Call number Title
F152 Class handouts, etc.
Rapid Prototyping Board (Xilinx) 
User's Manual 
TK 7872 L64 A54 1999 Altera MAX+PLUS II software 
24 hour loan of CD
or download
TK 7895 A38 B67 1996 Actel FPGA Data Book 
including applications notes
TK 7872 L64 X55 1996 Xilinx FPGA Data Book

Textbooks

Course notes TBD (online, handouts, for sale from EE club)

The textbooks are optional.  Some reference for VHDL will be necessary.  The university bookstore has copies of:

Additional VHDL documentation is available from
VHDL International Users' Forum
VHDL Cookbook (a free textbook by Ashenden)
 

Lab Assignments

 
Due
Lab 1 Jan 15
Lab 2 Jan 22
Lab 3 Jan 29
Lab 4 Feb 5
Lab 5 Feb 26
Lab 6 Mar 5 -optional
Students are to work alone on labs except where stated.  See here for where to submit labs. Labs reports should be brief but sufficiently clear and readable that you would be happy to submit them to a busy engineering manager.  If it only takes a sentence to describe something, then it should be described in a sentence.
Lab reports should include: Hints and tutorial information will be made  available here.
 
 

Chip Manufacturer's Documentation

Altera
Local UofA copies of documentation
 Literature
Altera University Frequently Asked Questions
Altera University Program
Applications notes
Altera is a trademark and service mark of Altera Corporation in the United States and other countries.  Altera products are the intellectual property
of Altera Corporation and are protected by copyright laws
Actel
Local UofA copies of documentation
Xilinx