EE 224 – DIGITAL SYSTEMS

EE224: Digital Systems

Year: 2016-17 Spring Semester

Instructor: Prof. Madhav Desai

Motivation:

This course introduces the basic digital systems starting from the basics of Boolean Algebra and simple logic gates. The course equips you with enough knowledge to build simple digital system using logic gates and analyse its performance. At the end you will have a big picture of how simple digital systems, including few fundamental blocks of a computer, work. This course is a prelude for the compulsory 3rd year course EE-309 (Microprocessors).

Course Content:

Click here for the official curriculum.

The official curriculum is closely followed.

Following list nearly covers all the topics that were taught:

  1.     Finite Boolean Algebra
  2.     Karnaugh Maps and other methods to simplify Boolean formula
  3.     Building fundamental digital circuits like adders, encoders, comparators etc. using other smaller blocks and logic gates.
  4.     Finite State Machine (FSM)
  5.     Latches (Memory Elements)
  6.     Detailed timing analysis of the D-latch and the Master Slave D-Flip Flop (this was one of the most diffuclt and important concept in the course)
  7.     Register Transfer Level Machines (RTL)
  8.     Basic structure of RAM – SRAM and DRAM
  9.     Verification and Testing

Feedback on Lectures:

The lectures are easy to follow if attended regularly. Attending lectures is important as the prof. did not strictly follow any book. Brief notes were uploaded after completion of a topic along with an assignment but taking notes during lectures is useful to keep the continuity in the lectures. The Digital Circuits Lab supplements the course very well. The course will feel easy if you attend all the classes and complete assignments in time. Specially, pay good attention when the timing analysis of the flip flop is taught, this topic is a bit confusing.

Feedback on assignments, quizzes and exams:

There were 2 quizzes of 10 marks each, a midsem exam of 30 marks and a 50 mark endsem exam. All the exams were scoring if you attend the lectures and go through the assignments and previous year question papers. The questions asked were logical and generally from what was taught in the class. The only questions that students found difficult were that related to the timing analysis, so I suggest you to pay good attention to the topic. The assignments were also easy and related to the examples taught in the class.

Prerequisites:                  

EE-112 (Introduction to Electronics) to say but it is not strictly required since the course starts with the very basics.

Difficulty:

Easy. This course was easier to score compared to the other courses like Power Electronics, and Signals and System (2nd year courses that run along with EE224 ). More than half of your effort is done if you are regular to classes!

Grading Statistics:

The grading was on the lenient side. Following are the stats:

AA-32

AB-50

BB-39

BC-25

CC-16

CD-10

DD-5

FR-5

Total

182

Reference books:

The brief notes uploaded by the professor along with the class notes are enough for the course requirements. These were the books suggested by the prof. for side reading:

1.       Z. Kohavi, Switching and Finite Automata Theory, McGraw Hill, 1970

2.       Tocci,Widmer,Moss : Digital Systems : Principles and Applications

 

 

Reviewed by:-  Shiva Gantha (ganthashiva@gmail.com)