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ELECTRONIC DIGITAL SYSTEMS

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Versione italiana
Academic year
2022/2023
Teacher
PIERO OLIVO
Credits
6
Didactic period
Primo Semestre
SSD
ING-INF/01

Training objectives

This is the first course of Digital Electronics and it studies the basic elements of a digital system. The course is preparatory to courses dealing with digital systems.

The main goal of the course consists in providing the basis to tackle the study of complex digital systems.

The main acquired knowledge will be:
• basic elements of a digital system
• basis of logic gates and of their circuit realization
• evolution of digital circuits
• number representation and combinational circuits to realize elementary mathematic operations
• basic sequential circuit, synchronous and asynchronous
• basic ADC e DAC and memory elements.

The basic acquired abilities (that are the capacity of applying the acquired knowledge) will be:
• analysis the behavior of simple logic circuit, both combinational and sequential
• identification of the most suitable techniques to analyze combinational and sequential circuits
• identification of the most suitable ADC/DAC or memory elements for a specific application.

Prerequisites

The course has no specific requirements.
During the course some applications of the theory of circuits will be treated which are deepened, from a theoretical point of view, in the course of "Electrical circuits: fundamentals and laboratory" held in the same didactic period:
• Ohm and Kirchhoff lows and their practical application; methods to analyze electrical circuits in steady and transient states.

Course programme

1. Introduction
What is a digital system? – An example of an electronic digital system - Introduction to binary numbers - Evolution and structure of computers– Differences between analog and digital electronics

2. Introduction to logic circuits
Representation of the status of the circuit status thru binary numbers – Elementary logic function: NOT, AND, OR – True table – Elementary logic gates– Logic circuits – Analysis of a logic circuit–Boole algebra– Single- and multi-variable theorems – Synthesis of a logic function ––NAND and NOR gates – Synthesis using NAND and NOR gates – XOR and XNOR logic gates

3. Physical realization of logic gates
Switch model of a transistor – Reminds of some important concepts: Ohm and Kirchhoff laws – Resistive divider – Concept of pull-up and pull-down networks – Power consumption – Semiconductors – Static characteristics of an in inverter – nMOS transistor – nMOS inverter and its limits – Dynamic power consumption – Importance of interconnections and of parasitic capacitances – Switching transient - An other remind: RC transient – pMOS transistor – CMOS inverter –CMOS logic gates – NAND and NOR realization – Fully CMOS circuits– Fan out of a logic gate – Pass transistor – Buffer and buffer tri-state

4. Principal combinational components
Multiplexers and their applications – Decoders – De-multiplexer and Encoders

5. Evolution of digital circuits: from chip standard to FPGA
Standard chip – Evolution: standard chip or programmable logic? – Programmable Logic Device –Macrocells – Off-chip or in-system programming – Field Programmable Gate Array – Custom circuits, Standard Cells, Gate arrays – Comparison between programmable logic and custom chips

6. Number representation and arithmetic circuits
Octal and hexadecimal representation – Sum of positive integers –Ripple Carry adder – Signed numbers – “complement to 1” and “complement to 2” representation – Subtraction of signed numbers – Adder/subtractor circuit– Overflow – Performance analysis – Fast adders: Carry-Lookahead adder – Multiplication – Array multiplier for positive numbers – Shifter – Real number representation: fixed point and floating point - ASCII coding – Parity bit concept

7. Basic elements for sequential circuits: flip-flop, registers, counters
Terminology - Latch S-R – Gated latch S-R – D latch – Prapagation delay effects –Master-Slave Flip-flop – Edge triggered Flip-flop – Timing parameters –J-K Flip-flop – Registers – Shift register – Counters – Syncronous counters– Examples of using basic circuits

8. Synchronous and asynchronous sequential circuits
Differences between synchronous and asynchronous circuits –Moore and Mealy Finite State Machines- Design flow of synchronous sequential circuit – State diagram – State assignment – Time diagrams– Example of Moore and Mealy FMS: serial adder – FSM Examples – Analysis of a synchronous circuit

9. Digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion
Conversion theory – General characteristics of a convertor –D/A convertors (Binary weighted, R-2R ladder). A/D converters (successive approximation, parallel) – Additional circuits: antialiasing filter and Sample&Hold circuit

10. Semiconductor memories
Characteristics – Memory organization - Decoder – Random access memories –SRAM and DRAM - Evolution and classification on non-volatile memories. NOR and NAND Flash

Didactic methods

In the academic year 22-23 the course will be held only in presence.

During the lessons, an interactive quiz platform will be used to check the degree of understanding of the class on the fundamental concepts covered during the lesson or in the previous lesson.

Each theoretical topic of the course is accompanied by questions on theory and exercises to be carry out independently. The questions and exercises are selected from the database of questions used for the exam and are therefore fully representative of the questions that make up the final exam.

The correction of the questions will be carried out in the classroom.

Since the program has not changed since the academic year 21-22, it is suggested that students who cannot attend lessons in the presence of download the lessons already recorded for the academic year. 21-22 and which will be made available on the Google Classroom website with jgdlcvd code.

Learning assessment procedures

The objective of the exam is to verify the level of achievement of the previously indicated training objectives.

Starting from the 1st session at the end of the course (December 2022), the exam consists of a quiz, giving the student the opportunity to take an additional oral exam.
The quiz test focuses on all the topics covered in the course. The test aims at evaluating the study of the subject and the understanding of the basic topics. The test consists of 33 questions (multiple choice quiz, with a single correct answer, both on aspects of theory and on simple exercises). The correct answer assigns 1 point, the wrong answer assigns -0.5 points, the non-answer 0 points. To pass the test it is necessary to acquire at least 18 points out of 33. The estimated time for the test is 66 minutes. It is not allowed to consult texts or use PCs, smart phones, calculators, ... Passing the test is evidence of having acquired sufficient knowledge of the basic elements of Boolean algebra, the theory of analog-digital conversion, logic gates, combinational and sequential circuits, converters and memory elements.

The student who has in any case reached the sufficiency but who is not satisfied with the score obtained can take an oral test, in which the ability to "repeat" some topics covered in class will not be assessed as much as the ability to connect and compare different aspects treated during the course. The test also aims at training the student in the oral presentation of their knowledge and skills, with a training effect in the field of Soft Skills.
The evaluation of the oral test can lead to an increase, but also to a decrease, of the mark obtained in the written test.

If the exam is not passed, it is not possible to take a further exam before 15 days.

The operational indications for the two tests are reported on Classroom.

Reference texts

M. Morris Mano - Charles Kime - Tom Martin – Reti logiche – 5° edizione – Pearson (only for subjects concerning booelan algebra, combinational and sequential circuits)