EE 224 – DIGITAL SYSTEMS
EE224: Digital Systems
Year: 2017-18 Spring Semester
Instructor: Prof. Madhav Desai
Motivation:
This course is introduction course to digital system. It begins with Boolean algebra and simple logic gates followed by more complex topics like Multipliers,FSM,etc. This course also supplements the Digital lab(EE214) course. So by the end of this course you will be able to implement simple digital system. Also, by the end you will have the complete overview of the digital system. This course is prerequisite for EE309(Microprocessors) course.
Course Content:
The follow topic were covered in my semester:
- Finite Boolean Algebra
- Boolean Formula Minimization Methods: Karnaugh Map,Shannon’s expansion,Iterated Consensus,etc.
- Structures for N-Bit Adder,Multiplier, comparator,etc. Followed by faster implementation of the same.
- Sequential Circuits: Finite State Machine(FSM)
- Level triggered Latches:Construction and Timing Analysis
- Master Slave D-Flip Flop: Construction and Timing Analysis
- RTL(Register Transfer Level) Descriptions
- Basic Structure of RAM-SRAM and DRAM (Not in exams)
- Formal Verification: Basic concepts and Tools
Feedback in Lectures:
The lectures were really informative and helped great with understanding. They were easy to follow too. Professor gave lecture notes but it was helpful to take class notes as the lecture notes by professor were concise. Topics related to timing analysis of latches and D-Flip Flop were really hard and gave hard time to many in the examination, so I recommend to be attentive in these lectures as it will help a lot. Other important topic are Boolean Formula Minimization and Formal Verification. Assignments were also uploaded along with lectures.
Feedback on quizzes and exams:
There was a total of 4 exams , i.e. 2 quizzes, 1 Midsem and 1 Endsem. Both quizzes corresponded to 15, Midsem to 30 and Endsem to 50, thus totalling to score out of 110. All the exams were easy and scoring. Completing the assignments helped a lot. The questions were easy and logical, and can be done by anyone who attended lectures regularly. Second quiz had some timing analysis questions corresponding to latches and D-Flip Flop which were really difficult.
Pre-requisites:
No strict prerequisites are there as this is a basic course, but as some of the topics were covered in EE112 course so things might speed-up a little bit in the start.
Difficulty:
Easy. Course is pretty easy compared to other courses which run in this semester like Power electronics or Signals & Systems.
Books:
The notes are sufficient for the course. No specific books were recommended by the professor, but some suggested ones are:
- Z. Kohavi, Switching and Finite Automata Theory, McGraw Hill, 1970
- Digital Systems: Hardware Organization and Design: Gerald R. Peterson and Frederick J. Hill
Grading Statistics:
AA-27
AB-45
BB-40
BC-30
CC-16
CD-12
DD-7
FR-4
W-2