Design of Digital Systems

Catalog description

The purpose of this course is to expose students to complete, custom design of a CMOS digital system. It emphasizes equally analytical and CAD based design methodologies, starting at the highest level of abstraction (RTL, front-end)), and down to the physical implementation level (back-end). In the lab students learn how to capture a design using both schematic and hardware description languages, how to synthesize a design, and how to custom layout a design. Testing, debugging, and verification strategies are formally introduced in the lecture, and practically applied in the lab projects. Students are further required to choose a research topic in the area of digital systems, perform bibliographic research, and write a research paper following a prescribed format.