Welcome to ES 4!
Quick links: Canvas — Campuswire — Gradescope — Textbook online — VHDLweb problems
This is the home page for Tufts ES 4, Introduction to Digital Logic.
Office hours
- Ravi Wednesdays 6-7pm, Halligan 223 (the lab)
- Lucas Fridays 12-1pm, Halligan 228D (next door to the lab)
- Prof Bell Mondays 4:30-6:30pm, Wednesdays 10am-12pm, Halligan 234
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 5)
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 9/6)
Read learning guide
Sign up on Campuswire (see email invite)
Complete welcome survey (link posted on Campuswire)
Numbers in binary
Just for fun
Boolean equations, truth tables, and circuits (Thursday 9/8)
Read Harris 1.5 (Logic gates)
Read Harris 2.1-2.2 (Boolean equations)
Complete reading check 1
Week 2 (September 12)
Manipulating boolean equations (Tuesday 9/13)
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 9/15)
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 in Halligan 223
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 19)
Multiplexers and FPGAs (Tuesday 9/20)
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 9/22)
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 9/29 via Gradescope)
Week 4 (September 26)
VHDL for combinational logic (Tuesday 9/27)
Read Harris 4.1-4.2, 4.7.2
Complete reading check 6
Computer arithmetic (Thursday 9/29)
Read Harris 1.4 (Representing numbers in binary)
Complete reading check 7
Lab
Assignments
Start Homework 2 (Solutions) (due 10/11 via Gradescope)
Just for fun
Week 5 (October 3)
No class on Tuesday (10/4)
Testing and testbenches (Thursday 10/6)
Read Harris 4.3, 4.9
Complete reading check 8
Structural modeling
Lab
There is no prelab or lab report this week; just follow the video tutorial and get the AND gate working.Assignments
Start Homework 3 (due 10/13 via VHDLweb)
Week 6 (October 10)
Adders and other combinational circuits (Tuesday 10/11)
Read Harris 5.1-5.2
Complete reading check 9
Lab
Possibly helpful
Just for fun
Exam 1 (Thursday 10/13)
Week 7 (October 17)
Latches and flip-flops (Tuesday 10/18)
Read Harris 3.1-3.3
Complete reading check 10
Describing sequential logic with VHDL (Thursday 10/20)
Read Harris 4.4-4.5, 5.4
Complete reading check 11
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)
More on sequential logic and VHDL (Tuesday 10/25)
No new quiz!
State machines (Thursday 10/27)
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.
Lab
Optional lab stuff
Possibly useful
Homework
Week 9 (October 31)
Moore on state machines (Tuesday 11/1)
No new reading!
Timing sequential logic (Thursday 11/3)
Read Harris 3.5
Complete reading check 13
Possibly useful
Lab
No new lab this week; complete lab 6 if you haven’t finished.
Just for fun
Week 10 (November 7)
No class on Tuesday due to “Tufts Friday”
Timing in real life, and some ethical dilemmas (11/10)
No new reading for today!
Ethics assignment (Due 11/22)
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 14)
Memory: registers, RAM, and ROM (Tuesday 11/15)
Read Harris 5.5
Complete reading check 14
Exam 2 (Thursday 11/17)
Lab
No new lab this week; complete lab 7 and start work on the final project.
Week 12 (November 21)
Digital peripherals and protocols (Tuesday 11/22)
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 28)
The ARM instruction set (Tuesday 11/29)
Read Harris 6.1-6.3.5
Complete reading check 16
From assembly to bits (Thursday 12/1)
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
Week 14 (December 5)
How a microprocessor executes code (Tuesday 12/6)
Read Harris 7.1-7.3.4
Final project demos (Thursday 12/8)
Final project demo day, Thursday 1:30pm-3:30pm
Projects
Work on final projects
Finals (December 13-22)
Project writeups due, December 19 3:30pm (earlier is better!)
Revised project writeups due, December 22 6pm