The course comprises a lecture series and a lab session series. The lectures aim to give a broad overview of the field of modern electronic system design. The lab series is intended to ensure that students have the necessary Hardware Description Language background and skills for subsequent courses in the EESD masters programme.

Lectures are scheduled up to three times per week, as shown in the Calendar. Several lecturers will be involved. Some lecture slots, especially in the first weeks, will be used to give a VHDL primer and information about the lab series. All lecture slides will be available for download in the Files folder. A schedule of the lecture topics will be available on these pages.

A VHDL kick-starter workshop is scheduled for week 1. The intention is to help the students get up to speed with VHDL and with the software tools, in preparation for the proper labs in the following weeks. During this workshop, students work individually in the course lab, with TAs present for support. Attendance is mandatory for the first 4-h pass; the second 2-h pass is voluntary.

The lab series proper starts in week 2 of the course and ends after week 7, for a total of six labs. Lab sessions are scheduled in two weekly slots, on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons, with an extra slot on Wednesday mornings during weeks 2–4. Students will be assigned a weekly slot, with other Chalmers classes taken into account as far as possible. If a collision still occurs, let us know.

All labs are compulsory. The first three labs are carried out individually; the rest are carried out in groups of 2. Teachers assign lab groups, together with MCC092 so as to minimize collisions. Groups will be posted on these pages, as will the lab PMs.

Lab topics for the six proper labs are as follows:

Basic arithmetic
FIR filters
Test benches and design synthesis
Component handling
A/D and D/A systems
A multirate system

Pre-lab preparations are necessary to make good use of the lab time. Thus, the instructions for the labs contain tasks to be carried out in advance (typically small design tasks).

Post-lab feedback is offered on the Thursday following the lab session, at the end of the morning lecture, immediately before lunch. Here, common mistakes and problems will be elucidated.