Digital Electronics

By the end of this content area, students will be able to have: 1. coherent knowledge of integrated circuit design including the use of advanced professional design tools; 2. the ability to apply their knowledge and understanding to identify, formulate and solve design problems using an appropriate methodology based on the use of hardware description languages, simulation and synthesis; 3. the ability to apply their knowledge and understanding to analyse engineering products, evaluating and optimizing the use of hardware resources and the performance of integrated circuits; 4. the ability to apply their knowledge and understanding to develop and realise designs that meet specified requirements; 5. an understanding of design alternatives (structural, behavioural, IP-based, etc.), and an ability to use them; 6. the ability to design and conduct appropriate simulations and tests, interpret the data and draw conclusions to debug a design; 7. workshop and laboratory skills. 8. the ability to select and use appropriate equipment, tools and methods; 9. the ability to combine theory and practice to solve integrated circuit design problems at RT level; 10. an understanding of applicable techniques and methods to integrated circuit design at RT level and of their limitations;

1. Introduction to integrated circuits and microelectronics. Design methodology. - Implementation of digital circuits. Integrated circuits and FPGAs. Pros and cons. - The design process of an integrated circuit. Design tools. Design flow. - Hardware Description Languages (HDLs). Pros and cons. 2. Review and extension of VHDL language concepts - Structural design and component instantiation - Packages - Concurrent and sequential statements. Processes. - Objects. Considerations about the use of variables and signals. - Data types and operators. + Scalar types + Composite types: ARRAY and RECORD + Subtypes + Operators and conversion functions + Attributes + Synthesis of data types - VHDL design of combinational circuits + Conditional statements and combinational circuits + Rules for the design of synthesizable combinational circuits - VHDL design of sequential circuits + Synchronous and asynchronous sequential circuits + Rules for the design of synthesizable sequential circuits + Register and flip-flop inference 3. Design validation by simulation - General structure of a test bench - Stimuli generation + Waveform generation using concurrent statements + Waveform generation using sequential statements + Application examples - Output checking. ASSERT statement. - Use of files for input and output 4. Design organization. Generic design. - Design organization - Generic design + Generic parameters + IP blocks + Types of IP blocks. Configuration and use. + Application examples - Iterative statements + Sequential iterative statements. Loops + Concurrent iterative statements - Subroutines. Functions and procedures. 5. FPGAs - Introduction. Types of FPGAs - Internal structure of a FPGA - Basic resources + Logic cells. Operationg modes + Input/Output blocks + Routing resources - Advanced resources + Memory blocks + Arithmetic blocks (DSPs) + Clock management and PLLs + Other resources - Configuration - Examples of FPGA families and devices - Applications 6. Synthesis and design optimization - Digital systems and abstraction levels - Synthesis steps - Design objectives. Estimation of area and delay. - Design optimization techniques at different abstraction levels - Design optimization at the RT level. Serial, parallel and pipelined implementations. - Clock frequency adjustment. Clock generation. - Estimation of power consumption. Low power design. - Examples with tools

- Lectures: 1 session/week (2 h.) - Practice: 1 session/week (2 h.). Most sessions in Computer Room to develop practical exercises using design tools - Lab. Practice: 4 sessions, 3 h. each. Devoted to implement a practical circuit - Personal assistance, as scheduled by the professor