Tag Archives: VLSI systems

Welcome CS teachers and students!

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[Be sure to visit Living Computers in Seattle. SIGCSE 2017 attendees are admitted free during the conference. I visited the museum today and it was a lot of fun! K-12 teachers will enjoy the hands on exhibits.]

The annual ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2017) Technical Symposium is next week (March 8 – 11) in Seattle, Washington. The symposium brings together educators at all levels (K-12 and higher ed) to exchange and discuss the latest methods, practices and results in computer science education.

I don’t often advertise it, but the Sand, Software, Sound site has many resources for educators and students alike. You can browse these resources by clicking on one of the WordPress topic buttons (Raspberry Pi, PERF, Courseware, etc.) above. You can also search for a topic or choose from one of the categories listed in the right sidebar.

Here are a few highlights.

I taught many computer-related subjects during my career and have posted course notes, slides and old projects. The four main sections are:

  • CS2 data structures: Undergraduate data structures course suitable for advanced placement students.
  • Computer design: Undergraduate computer architecture and design which uses a multi-level modeling approach.
  • VLSI systems: Graduate course on VLSI architecture, design and circuits which is suitable for undergraduate seniors.
  • Topics in computer architecture: Material for a special topics seminar about computer architecture (somewhat historical).

Please feel free to dig through these materials and make use of them.

Software and hardware performance analysis formed a major thread throughout my professional life. I recommend reading my series of tutorials on the Linux PERF tool set for software performance analysis:

The ARM11 microarchitecture summary is background material for the PERF tutorial. Program profiling is a good way to bring computer architecture to life and to teach students how to analyze and assess the execution speed of their programs.

There are two additional tutorials and getting started guides for teachers and students working on Raspberry Pi:

Music technology and computer-based music-making have been two of my chief interests over the years. The Arduino section of the site has several of my past projects using the Arduino for music-making. You should also check out my recent blog posts about the littleBits synth modules and littleBits Arduino. Please click on the tags and links at the bottom of each post in order to chase down material.

You might also enjoy my tutorial on software synthesizers for Linux and Raspberry Pi. The tutorial is a getting started guide for musicians of all stripes — music teachers and students are certainly welcome, too!

VLSI systems course

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The syllabus and notes for my VLSI systems course is now available in the courseware section of the site.

This is a “Mead and Conway” course on VLSI systems and CMOS circuit design. Mead and Conway led the world with their approach to VLSI design. Instead of focusing on device electronics and physics, this approach spans system-level design down to layout and fabrication. It is particularly well-suited for computer science majors who may not have much background in electronics.

I approach VLSI system design like computer design. Heck, a computer is just another digital system to be implemented in CMOS! Thus, students build and test a series of successively more detailed models for a VLSI (digital) system, eventually implementing a circuit layout which is suitable for fabrication. At the time, student designs were manufactured by the MOSIS fabrication service (which is still in business, by the way).

Both the computer design and VLSI systems courses relied quite heavily on simulation. System- and register transfer-level models were written in a stylized C/C++. Logic- and switching transistor-level simulation was handled by IRSIM. Electronic circuit-level simulation was performed through SPICE. It’s good to see that IRSIM is open source and is still available. And, of course, SPICE is still an industry standard.

Most academic courses have switched to VHDL or Verilog for system- and register transfer-level modeling. Both languages and associated simulators can be applied to the logic-level, too. I would strongly consider or recommend either option today. Depending upon tool support, students may also be able to synthesize their designs in field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology. Logisim and SmartSim look like terrific alternatives, too. I saw a LogiSim demo at SIGCSE last March and it’s a pretty spiffy tool. SmartSim runs on the Raspberry Pi — what could be better than that?

Unfortunately, VHDL and Verilog are not the most approachable, easily understood languages. I’m not the only person with this opinion. Please see “FPGA Programming for the Masses” in the April 2013 issue of CACM. I’ve seen advertising that calls Verilog “C-like.” I disagree.

My ulterior motive is to reach and teach digital systems at the high school level. VHDL and Verilog, unfortunately, are not as easily learned as C/C++ or Java. I’m hoping to gain more hands-on experience when I get rolling with Papillio — maybe find a way to bridge Java/C/C++ to VHDL and open the door to a broader community of students.