Welcome to ES 4!
Quick links: Canvas — Piazza — Gradescope — Textbook online — VHDLweb problems
This is the home page for Tufts ES 4, Introduction to Digital Logic.
Office hours
- Prof Bell Mondays 10am-12pm, Thursdays 10am-12pm, SEC 223
- Cory Tuesday 3-4pm, 550 Boston
- Lucas Wednesday 3-4pm, 550 Boston
- Drew Friday 12-1pm, CLIC 414 (574 Boston Ave)
Schedule and links
General due dates, unless otherwise specified:
- Reading checks are due on the day of class at 11am, via Canvas.
- Homework/assessments are due on Tuesdays at 1:30pm (i.e., at class time), via Gradescope.
- Prelabs are due 24 hours before your lab section, via Gradescope.
- Lab writeups are due at the time of your lab section the following week, via Gradescope.
Week 1 (September 4)
Class begins in Robinson 253 (aka the lecture hall in the SEC). You don’t need to do anything before class, just show up!
Introduction (Tuesday 9/5)
Read learning guide
Sign up on Piazza (see email invite)
Numbers in binary
Just for fun
Boolean equations, truth tables, and circuits (Thursday 9/7)
Read Harris 1.5 (Logic gates)
Read Harris 2.1-2.2 (Boolean equations)
Complete reading check 1
Complete welcome survey (link posted on Piazza, due Friday 9/8)
Week 2 (September 11)
Manipulating boolean equations (Tuesday 9/12)
Sign up on Gradescope (see email invite)
Read Harris 2.3-2.5
Complete reading check 2
Possibly helpful
Minimizing logic with Karnaugh maps (Thursday 9/14)
Harris 2.6-2.7
Complete reading check 3
Practice simplifying boolean equations (works best in Chrome)
Karnaugh map solver (Make up your own and practice!)
Possibly helpful
Lab
In-person labs begin this week at 550 Boston Ave
Possibly helpful
Building a circuit on a breadboard from a schematic (This video shows a different circuit from an earlier iteration of the course, but walks through the process of drawing a schematic and building it on a breadboard.)
Week 3 (September 18)
Multiplexers and FPGAs (Tuesday 9/19)
Read Harris 2.8
Complete reading check 4
Just for fun
What is an FPGA? (EEVblog) A thorough overview of FPGAs, how they work inside, and comparison with a microcontroller.
Timing combinational logic (Thursday 9/21)
Read Harris 2.9
Complete reading check 5
Possibly helpful
Lab
MS Word report template (You don’t have to use this, it’s just for convenience.)
Assignments
Start Homework 1 (Solutions) (due 9/26 via Gradescope)
Week 4 (September 25)
VHDL for combinational logic (Tuesday 9/26)
Read Harris 4.1-4.2, 4.7.2
Complete reading check 6
Computer arithmetic (Thursday 9/28)
Read Harris 1.4 (Representing numbers in binary)
Complete reading check 7
Integer Exposed visualization of signed numbers
Lab
Assignments
Start Homework 2 (Solutions) (due 10/10 via Gradescope)
Just for fun
Float Exposed - See how floating point numbers are represented with bits
Week 5 (October 2)
Testing and testbenches (Tuesday 10/3)
Read Harris 4.3, 4.9
Complete reading check 8
Structural modeling
Adders and other combinational circuits (Thursday 10/5)
Read Harris 5.1-5.2
Complete reading check 9
Lab
There is no prelab or lab report this week!
Video tutorial: using Radiant (follow the document above to flash)
Assignments
Start Homework 3 (due 10/13 via VHDLweb)
Possibly helpful
Just for fun
Week 6 (October 9)
Exam 1 (Tuesday 10/10)
Latches and flip-flops (Thursday 10/12)
Read Harris 3.1-3.3
Complete reading check 10
Lab
Just for fun
Week 7 (October 16)
Describing sequential logic with VHDL (Tuesday 10/17)
Read Harris 4.4-4.5, 5.4
Complete reading check 11
More on sequential logic and VHDL (Thursday 10/19)
No new quiz!
Lab
No new lab this week; complete lab 5 if you haven’t finished.
Free-form VHDL simulation
Possibly helpful
From D-latch to D-flip-flop (Ben Eater) (This is a different way to build a D flip-flop than what the book describes, which might help you better understand what it does.)
Just for fun
How does a PS/2 keyboard work? (Ben Eater) (Watch the first half to see a cool use of a shift register)
Week 8 (October 23)
State machines (Tuesday 10/24)
Read Harris 3.4, 4.6
Complete reading check 12
Introduction to state machines (Intermation) Detailed explanation of what “state” is, with a walkthrough of the traffic light example from start to finish.
Moore on state machines (Thursday 10/26)
No new reading!
Lab
Optional lab stuff
Possibly useful
Week 9 (October 30)
Timing sequential logic (Tuesday 10/31)
Read Harris 3.5
Complete reading check 13
Timing in real life, and some ethical dilemmas (Thursday 11/2)
No new reading for today!
Ethics assignment (Due 11/22)
Possibly useful
Lab
No new lab this week; complete lab 6 if you haven’t finished.
Just for fun
Week 10 (November 5)
No class on Tuesday due to “Tufts Friday”
Memory: registers, RAM, and ROM (Thursday 11/9)
Read Harris 5.5
Complete reading check 14
Lab
Pick one of the following three labs to complete. You probably want to coordinate with your project team so you collectively cover them all.Week 11 (November 12)
Project advice and exam review (Tuesday 11/14)
Exam 2 (Thursday 11/16)
FSM logic practice problems (Sorry, we don’t have solutions written up for these!)
Lab
No new lab this week; complete lab 7 and start work on the final project.
Week 12 (November 19)
Digital peripherals and protocols (Tuesday 11/21)
Complete reading check 15
Possibly helpful
Harris 9.1-9.3.4.1 (available as an online supplement
Just for fun
Projects
Work on final projects
No class on Thursday, enjoy your Thanksgiving break!
Week 13 (November 26)
The ARM instruction set (Tuesday 11/28)
Read Harris 6.1-6.3.5
Complete reading check 16
From assembly to bits (Thursday 11/30)
Read Harris 6.4
Complete reading check 17
Arm v8 microarchitecture simulator (We’re using Arm v7, but still helpful)
Projects
Work on final projects
Just for fun
On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace(1980 paper about byte ordering)
Week 14 (December 4)
How a microprocessor executes code (Tuesday 12/5)
Read Harris 7.1-7.3.4
Final project demos (Thursday 12/7)
Final project demo day, Thursday 1:30pm-3:30pm
Projects
Work on final projects
Finals (December 12-21)
Project writeups due, December 18 12pm (earlier is better!)
Revised project writeups due, December 21 6pm