Laboratory of Electronic Circuits and Systems (LCSE 1)
The knowledge of digital electronics to the practical design of a digital medium of medi-um-high complexity is applied in this course. For this, it has to be able to reach a physical implementation from functional specifications following the methodology of synchronous digi-tal circuit design.
The emphasis of the laboratory is made in the use of CAD tools to design complex digital circuits using the VHDL description hardware language. By taking advantage of this scenar-io, other important practical issues will be also covered related to the design of complex digital systems. Validation of development is an important task to be performed by simulation, as in professional environments.
Throughout the course the student has to perform several practices by applying the different phases of a classic methodology of design:
1. Study of design CAD tools
2. VHDL specification and simulation techniques
3. Synthesis and implementation over FPGA
More specifically, the goals of the course can be described as follows:
− Experience in the development of complex digital systems
− Develop the analysis ability of a specification
− Use professional tools for synthesis and digital simulation
− Understand the importance of synchronous digital systems
− Learn techniques for debugging hardware systems through simulation
− Properly plan the developing stages of a complex system
− Address all phases of development until the final test in a real FPGA
Topic 1: The VHDL
Levels of abstraction
Data types and subtypes, conversions
Constants, signals and variables, attributes
Assignments, operators
Entities, ports and generics
Architectures, concurrent sentences
Processes and sensitivity lists, sequential statements
Reuse of components, packages and libraries
Test benches, wait and after
Topic 2: Practical considerations for design and simulation-verification
State machine description
Concept synthesizable code
Synthesis common Inferences
Combinational and sequential processes
Timing and simulation
Files restrictions
Topic 3: Common mistakes in the use of VHDL
Incomplete lists sensitivity
Appearance of latches
Combinational loops
Assigning multiple signal
Use of signals and variables
Token Initialization
Practice I: consists of guided exercises with the purpose of introducing the language VHDL hardware description of and familiar with software development tools, plus the design of a small module complexity that then become part of Practice II system.
Practice II: Design of specifications for a complete digital electronic system complexity average.
The aim of the proposed practice I is to familiarize students with development tools and to dis-cover the special features of digital hardware specification through high-level languages, since it is intrinsically different from the software programming, which they are very used to.
In this sense, they are asked to hand in the answers to the issues raised in Exercises 1 through 6 as well as the generated code for Exercise 7, which will be analyzed by teachers to determine the degree of competence acquired. Then, they will meet with the students to discuss the difficulties and correct deficiencies in the work methods and specification in order to facilitate the approach of Practice II.
The ultimate goal of the course consists of the implementation of the proposed system in Prac-tice II, reaching, if possible, the real testing on the prototyping board. Thus, the emphasis is more on the development of the specification skills, simulation and debugging, and less on the generation of documentation. Since the number of students is not very high, teachers carry out a very close monitoring of their work.
At the end of the course the students are asked to hand in all the generated code and a brief re-port of the work done in Practice II, including the following information:
− Decisions made on the chosen architecture
− Differences with the proponed scheme and justification
− Difficulties encountered and their solution
− Degree of achievement of the final prototype
The final evaluation is based on the information in the report together with the results of a practical oral examination that takes place between a teacher and each lab Group, where the students must demonstrate:
− Their knowledge about the system developed
− The achievement grade in it
− Their proficiency in the use of tools and methodologies
The teacher also observes the ability of the students to communicate technical information, knowledge, justifications, etc. effectively and concisely and to answer the questions they are posed.
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