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Laboratory for Digital Electronics

Abstract

The Digital Electronics course (ECE 3500)1 was created in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Western Michigan University to develop the skills students need to design, and simulate digital integrated circuits down to the transistor layout level using Mentor Graphics Category II tools2. Digital Electronics is a required course for students majoring in computer engineering. The class has an embedded lab which makes use of the 0.25 micron technology for IC implementations (0.25-micron Design Kit by MIT). In order to pass the course students need to pass the embedded lab as well. Students work with the Mentor Graphics Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools to design and simulate their circuits. The tools used are as follows: IC Flow (Design Architect and IC Station), Analog and Mixed Signal Design (AMS-ELDO Simulator and Xelga Viewer) and Calibre (Design Rules Check (DRC), Layout Versus Schematics Check (LVS), and Parasitic Extraction).

The focus in the course is primarily on designing digital circuits. Topics include CMOS transistor models, static and dynamic CMOS gate styles, CMOS logic function blocks, sequential circuits, timing issues, memory and array structures, and interconnect parasitics. The embedded lab provides a hands-on approach of applying the concepts taught in the class. Students are required to create CMOS transistor-level designs, perform function tests along with timing analysis and create layouts for their circuits. The designs must pass the DRC and LVS checks. The final step in verifying the performance of the designs is the parasitic extraction in each lab. The best two designs with respect to the shortest circuit delays and the smallest layout areas are given bonus credit in each lab. Lab experiments include the design of inverter, basic logic gates, 2-input XOR gate, 1-bit full adder module, static SR flip-flop, two-bit synchronous counter, one- of-four multiplexer module, and 4bit x 1bit static RAM

In addition to the lab and class work (which includes homework assignments, midterm exam, and final exam) students develop two class projects (4-bit ALU unit and a dual 4x4-bit register bank). Students are required to give demonstration of each project to the instructor to get full credit for the projects. A 100-page Tutorial on using the Mentor Graphics tools is available on the class Web Page to help students. Various useful topics regarding the projects and the labs are also provided on the class Web Page.

In the first part of the paper, we will summarize the outline and summary of the class. The second part of the paper will focus on the class projects and laboratory work in detail. The third part of the paper will focus on the assessments used for the class and future developments planned based upon the assessment and comments provided by the students.

Introduction

The Digital Electronics course and the Digital Electronics Laboratory have been developed in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department such that its main emphasis is on the various aspects of designing and simulating digital integrated circuits by taking a bottom-

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Grantner, J., & Gottipati, R. (2006, June), Laboratory For Digital Electronics Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--1409