Instructor: Prof. Sachin B. Patkar
Session: 2019-2020
Prerequisites: N/A
Course content and structure:
- Familiarization with Quartus + Modelsim software for design / implementation / simulation
- Get familiar with the Krypton CPLD board.
- Use the Krypton board to design and implement combinational circuits.
- Verify using switches and LED’s on the Krypton board.
- Get familiar with the scan-based tester equipment and methodology.
- Use the Krypton board to design and implement more complex combinational circuits.
- Verify using scan-based tester.
- Use the Krypton board to design and implement simple finite state machines and test them using the scan-based tester.
- Use the Krypton board to design and implement simple register-transfer-level machines and test them using the scan-based tester
Feedback on lectures:
This course set the standard for the disinterest that can be developed due to ineffective teaching combined with mismanaged lab-sessions.
Usually the instructor gave lecture during the initial 1.5hrs of lab session which was hardly audible (thanks to wel lab acoustic system), barely visible (thanks to the ridiculous choice of stylus colours the instructor used on projector, light reflecting off the projector screen and viewing distance further exposing hd quality projectors). Needless to say very few students comprehended (those who did infact put prior effort) or even made through that phase with concentration.
Then came the time to actually code i.e. the later half. However first few lectures were just spent in debugging errors related to installing and making the Quartus and UrjTag softwares work on our laptops.
Fast forward to 3 weeks into the course when majority had those technical issues fixed — the later half of lab session looked like “scripted robots” trying to complete the task (asking from peers/tas or comprehending every thing from the pdf provided) before the end of that lab session because it carried marks for that session.
The last 5-10 mins were essentially emailing and forwading the code and screenshots for submission.
Feedback on tutorials and exams: No tutorials or exams were conducted uptil campus lockdown.
Difficulty (on a scale of 1 being very easy to 5 being very hard): 3
Textbooks & References:
Free Range VHDL by Mealy and Tappero There were however a lot of other pdfs and NPTEL video lecture series shared by the prof on moodle. Topic specific PDFs were also uploaded on moodle for the subsequent week’s experiment. (The amount of resources were so much that it felt like moodle spamming since one can’t read 20 page pdf(s)/40-45min videos before the experiment)
Grading Statistics:
The entire batch was awarded ‘S’ grade due to the fact that post lockdown (16th March, 2020) no course content was covered. Infact the lab midsem was also scraped due to it. Hence the evaluation metric was just limited to 3-4 lab experiment submissions before (proposed) midsem.
THIS WAS THE GRADING SCHEME THAT WOUL’VE FOLLOWED UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES – 40% experiment evaluations, 20% midsemester exam and 40% final exam.
Additional comments & what you learnt from the course:
I think one needs to put in extra effort outside the labs if they want to complete all the in-lab assignments with self-esteem. However TAs can work wonders before the exams as some of them were quite knowledgable. Sincere effort with your ta (or a faithful friend) some days before exams will do the job just fine (Not to mention, be thorough with your in-lab assignments before exam).