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ELECTRONIC DIGITAL SYSTEMS

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Versione italiana
Academic year
2018/2019
Teacher
PIERO OLIVO
Credits
6
Didactic period
Secondo 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 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
• basis of sequential circuit, synchronous and asynchronous
• basis of ADC e DAC and of 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 synthetize combinational and sequential circuits
• identification of the most suitable ADC/DAC or memory elements for a specific application.

Prerequisites

The following concepts and the knowledge provided by the course of “Circuiti elettrici: fondamenti e laboratorio (Electrical circuits: fundamentals and laboratory)” are important, although they are not mandatory:

• knowledge of the circuit theory: 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

The course is organized as follow:

• frontal lectures on all the course’s topics (60 hours)

Learning assessment procedures

The aim of the exam is to verify at which level the learning objectives previously described have been acquired.

The examination is divided in 2 sections that will take place in the same day.
• One test (multiple choice questions or solutions of numeric exercises) based on all the topics tackled in the class, with the aim of evaluating how deeply the student has studied the subject and how he is able to understand the basic topics analyzed. This section is selective (the student that does not show a sufficient knowledge of the subject, cannot be admitted to the following section.) To pass this test it is required to get at least 10 points out of 20. The time allowed for this test is 1 hour. It is not allowed consulting any textbook or using any PC, smart phone, calculator... Passing the test is a witness of having acquired sufficient knowledge of the basis elements of an electronic system, logic gates, combinational and sequential circuits, converters and memory elements

• One oral section, where the ability of linking different subjects related to the digital electronics is evaluated, rather than the ability of “repeating” specific topics tackled in the course. The maximum score for the oral section is 13 points. The test also aims to exercise the student in the oral presentation of their knowledge and skills, with a training effect in the context of Soft Skills.

The final mark is the sum of the 2 marks. To pass the exam it is necessary to get at least 18 point out of 33.

Passing the test is a witness of having acquired the knowledge of the methods for the analysis of complex digital systems and their interconnections in the presence of constraints on cost, speed, area occupancy and noise immunity.

If one of the 2 tests is insufficient or if the total score is less than 18 it is necessary to repeat all 2 tests.

Reference texts

M. Morris Mano - Charles Kime - Tom Martin – Reti logiche – 5° edizione – Pearson

Teacher’s handouts