Description of Contents:
The existing top-down design methodologies for electronic systems are described in this course, where the electronic system is considered as a part of a whole system, device, or application that can be highly complex and / or multidisciplinary, going from specifications capturing, to subsystems/blocks/circuits identification and specification). The advanced tools and techniques for signal processing and system analysis are required to apply those methodologies: Spectral analysis of signals (DFT , FFT, spectral estimation, windows, power spectral density), discrete to continuous systems conversion (residues, invariance impulse principle) applied to digital signal processing, statistical processing of sampled and continuous signals, quantization error analysis, processing and simulation, shot and thermal noise. Furthermore, the design methodology for the integration of electronic circuits and systems is presented, providing an overview of the available resources and technologies, both general purpose (microprocessors, DSPs ) and specific purpose (ASICs, FPGAs), analog, digital and mixed-signal, through specific case studies. The tools supporting the design flow are also presented for different levels of abstraction, including behavioural simulation tools (Matlab / Simulink-specific, such as System Identification Toolbox Toolboxes), high-level synthesis tools (such as Xilinx system Generator), which allow to synthesize a digital circuit from a behavioural model, Hardware -In- the- Loop (HIL) debugging, combining an emulated processing system with other blocks and systems, and the tools that allow the hardware description of digital, analog and mixed-signal circuits (VHDL, Verilog, Verilog A).
Syllabus:
T1. Electronic Systems Overview
- Goals and Strategy, Application examples
- Tools, Partitioning and Testing
T2. Design Flow and Development techniques of an electronic system
- HW Prototyping techniques
- Basic Design Flow. Reference for IC design
and embedded systems
- Modelling, CAD and EDA tools
- Design flows
T3. Review of Electronic Signals and Systems
- Digital Signal Processing Review
- Taxonomy of signals and systems
- Some useful signals
- Common Units
- Introduction to DSP and Applications
- Z Transform
- Nonlinear systems
T4. Power spectrum and Frequency Response
FFT algorithm
- Power Spectrum Estimation
- Digital Signal Processing, frequency domain
T5. Modelling of Sampled systems
- Uniform sampling, decimation, interpolation
- Multirate systems
- Irregular sampling
- Continuous-/Discrete-Time mapping
- Numerical Solvers
T6. Modelling of Noise and Quantization error
- Random Signals and Stochastic Processes.
- Filtered noise
- Quantization error
- Oversampling
- Dithering
T7. Digital Filters
- IIR filters. Analog filter digitalization
- FIR filters.
T8. System Identification
T9. Modelling and Specifying Digital Functions
- Data representation and operation implementation
Final Project: from behavioural to circuit description, practical example of behavioural modelling and high-level synthesis
- Practical project using Matlab and Xilinx System Generator
Bibliography: The bibliography shown below is not complete. Given the variety of topics, specific bibliography will be proposed during the course