EE 224 – Digital Systems
Session – 2018-19
Instructor – Virendra Singh
Course Content –
The official content is here:
https://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/web/academics/courses/EE224
In addition to these the following topics were covered:
- Binary Decision Diagram- Canonical Form of representation
- Special functions- Self Dual Functions, Symmetric Functions, Threshold functions
- Reed Muller Canonical Form
- Shannon’s Expansion Theorem
Prerequisite –
There are no prerequisites as such for EE dept as it already has a parallel lab course running(EE 214) . But for EP students VHDL is a prerequisite.
Feedback on the lectures –
The instructor is known for his devotion towards his teaching. In this course too he covered all the contents properly. He was enthusiastic enough to take doubts in the class but laid a strong emphasis on making notes, giving a bonus for them. The instructor conducted weekly quizzes which didn’t have much weight in the evaluation but contributed to the learning. There were tutorial classes every week to address the doubts of the students.
Sir also conducted extra classes to account for the topics in which the class does not perform well in the quizzes or if specifically asked for the same.
The examples which were given in the lectures assisted nicely with the theory and contributed to the learning. Sir made sure to give enough examples on each topic and extra examples for practice.
He was keen on the learning of the students and offered personal help in case a student needed(in the form of office hours or extra tutorial sessions with the TAs).
Feedback on Assignments/Tutorials /Exams–
The course had 6 tutorials some of which were challenging. The instructor
There were weekly tutorials that were meant to take up the doubts not addressed in the class. These tutorials didn’t carry extra information usually and were meant for the purpose of revision. These were basically held for the students who are not able to understand one or more topics in the class.
There were weekly quizzes conducted every Tuesday after the lecture. These were quizzes of no time limit. The students can sit until the next class starts. These were binary quizzes and marks were given on the basis of the answer although partial marking was done many times. These quizzes usually consisted of a multiple correct question and one or more subjective questions. These questions were generally harder than class examples but can be solved using the theory taught in the class. Many a time there were bonus questions in the quiz too.
There were two assignments worth a weight of 15% given at the end of sem. Both these assignments were moderately tough. These assignments had to be written in structural VHDL and pass certain test cases to account for the grade.
There was a compulsory course project given at the end of the course which was on a slightly tougher side. This project was worth 30% weight. There were teams of 3/4 people working on this project. This project had to be made in VHDL. After the completion, a demo had to be given to the TAs, i.e. to pass the test cases given, to earn the grade.
There was a voluntary bonus project which a team or a student can take up to earn extra credit. The student had to suggest an idea or take the idea from the professor and implement it in VHDL.
Midsem was on an easier side whereas Endsem was on a tougher side.
Difficulty (on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being very tough) –
3
Textbooks/References –
Switching and Finite Autmata Theory by Kohavi and Jha is is concise book for the course, specifically if you believe in self study. The other books which are recommended Digital Design by John F Wakerley and Digital Design by Moris Mano.
Softwares – Quartus
Reviewed by Shailee Suryawanshi