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.
Schedule and links
This is the draft schedule for Fall ’24, so you can get a sense of how the course will go. Links will be fixed as the course progresses.
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 1)
Class begins in Barnum LL08 (the lecture hall in the Barnum basement – it’s easiest to enter at the back). You don’t need to do anything before class, just show up!
Introduction (Tuesday 9/3)
Read learning guide
Sign up on Piazza (see email invite)
Numbers in binary
Just for fun
Boolean equations, truth tables, and circuits (Thursday 9/5)
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 9/6)
Assignments
Start Homework 1 (Solutions) (due 9/17 via
Gradescope)
Week 2 (September 8)
Manipulating boolean equations (Tuesday 9/10)
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 9/12)
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
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 15)
Multiplexers and FPGAs (Tuesday 9/17)
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 9/19)
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.)
Week 4 (September 22)
VHDL for combinational logic (Tuesday 9/24)
Read Harris 4.1-4.2, 4.7.2
Complete reading check
6
Computer arithmetic (Thursday 9/26)
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 (September 29)
Testing and testbenches (Tuesday 10/1)
Read Harris 4.3, 4.9
Complete reading
check 8
Structural modeling
Adders and other combinational circuits (Thursday 10/3)
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 7)
Exam 1 (Tuesday 10/8)
Latches and flip-flops (Thursday 10/10)
Read Harris 3.1-3.3
Complete reading check
10
Lab
Just for fun
Week 7 (October 13)
Describing sequential logic with VHDL (Tuesday 10/15)
Read Harris 4.4-4.5, 5.4
Complete reading check
11
More on sequential logic and VHDL (Thursday 10/17)
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 20)
State machines (Tuesday 10/22)
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 10/24)
No new reading!
Lab
Optional lab stuff
Possibly useful
Week 9 (October 27)
Building FSMs to talk to peripherals (Tuesday 10/29)
Complete reading check
15
Possibly helpful
Harris 9.1-9.3.4.1 (available as an online
supplement)
Just for fun
Memory: registers, RAM, and ROM (Thursday 10/31)
Read Harris 5.5
Complete reading check
14
Lab
No new lab this week; complete lab 6 if you haven’t finished.
Week 10 (November 3)
No class on Tuesday — election day!
Timing sequential logic (Tuesday 11/7)
Read Harris 3.5
Complete reading check
13
Possibly useful
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 10)
No class on Tuesday — Tufts Monday schedule!
Timing in real life, and some ethical dilemmas (Thursday 11/14)
No new reading for today!
Ethics assignment (Due 11/22)
Just for fun
Week 12 (November 17)
Project advice and exam review (Tuesday 11/19)
Exam 2 (Thursday 11/21)
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.
Projects
Work on final projects
Week 13 (November 24)
The ARM instruction set (Tuesday 11/26)
Read Harris 6.1-6.3.5
Complete reading check
16
Projects
Work on final projects
Just for fun
On
Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace (1980 paper about byte ordering)
No class on Thursday, enjoy your Thanksgiving break!
Week 14 (December 1)
From assembly to bits (Tuesday 12/3)
Read Harris 6.4
Complete reading check
17
Arm
v8 microarchitecture simulator (We’re using Arm v7, but still
helpful)
How a microprocessor executes code (Thursday 12/5)
Read Harris 7.1-7.3.4
Week 15 (December 8)
Final project demos (Tuesday 12/10)
Final project demo day, Tuesday 1:30pm-3:30pm
Projects
Work on final projects
Finals (December 13-20)
Project writeups due, December 17 12pm (earlier is better!)
Revised project writeups due, December 20 6pm