Digital Systems Design

Recommended Prerequisites

Digital Systems Laboratory, Microprocessor systems, Software Engineering (only the part on project methodologies)

Teaching Methods

Lecture classes with detailed presentation, using audiovisual resources, of the concepts, principles and fundamental theories and solving of basic practical exercises to illustrate the practical interest of the subject and exemplify its application to real cases.

 

Laboratory classes, with lab assignments of growing complexity, initially with a tutorial set of instructions, but later fostering a more autonomou work, and the last assignment is already a full mini-project. 

Learning Outcomes

The main objective is to provide key concepts and skills for the correct execution of all the stages of a digital design project, including training on the use of software tools for the synthesis of medium and high complexity digital circuits. Learning formal models and methodologies for digital systems design. At the end students will be able to design digital systems for diverse applications, using formal methods and hardware description languages, such as VHDL, and implement them on reconfigurable logic systems.

 

The course objectives and planned work lead the students to acquire competencies in synthesis and analysis, written communication, problem solving, critical reasoning, autonomous learning, and practical application of theoretical knowledge.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

• Revision of Digital Systems

• Physical implementation technologies for digital systems

• Key concepts of Systems Design and projects

• Digital Design project methodologies and management

• VHDL language for description, design and synthesis of hardware

• Advanced Register Transfer Level (RTL) design

• Representation models for architectures

• Modelling discrete events systems

Head Lecturer(s)

Jorge Manuel Miranda Dias

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Laboratory work or Field work: 20.0%
Project: 30.0%
Exam: 50.0%

Bibliography

Bibliografia principal / key bibliography

• Jorge Lobo, (2018) Slides das aulas de Projecto de Sistemas Digitais.

• Fabrizio Tappero, Bryan Mealy, (2013), Free Range VHDL.

• Frank Vahid, Roman Lysecky, (2007) VHDL for Digital Design, John Wiley and Sons.

• Frank Vahid, (2007)  Digital Design, John Wiley and Sons. (second edition in 2011)

• Vahid/Givargis (2002),  Embedded Systems Design: A Unified Hardware/Software Introduction