News (also see the announcement newsgroup)

Welcome to the Digital Hardware Design Laboratory. This web site is a supplement to the textbook and is designed to give specific instructions for ECE2031 and CS2801.

(CS2801 -- formerly ECE2883 -- is a supplement to the ECE2031 course for CS majors in the "Devices" thread. Students in CS2801 attend the same lecture and lab sessions as ECE2031 students, but also have supplementary requirements.)

On this site, tutorials are included to demonstrate the oscilloscope, the logic analyzer, writing reports, and state machine designs. Each student is required to read the laboratory and perform any prelab exercises before coming to the lab, since most exercises will consume the full three-hour lab session.
The laboratory assumes an in-lab setup of a computer-based digital simulation package, an oscilloscope, a logic analyzer, and Altera's UP3 university board, a CADET II digital design station, and the miscellaneous items listed below.

Information for the Summer 2009 semester
Most of your questions about the course (what you need before the first class, etc.) are answered in the FAQ. Check it out. As far as specifics for your semester are concerned, watch for updates, and note the following:

If a lecture period or lab section is full when you attempt to sign up, then it is full. The limits are defined based on what the rooms and equipment can handle. So it doesn't matter how good a reason you have to request an overload — if the rooms could handle one more student, the limits would be one higher!

• Lecture is first held late in the week during the first week of classes, and nothing else takes place before then. (CS2801 has an earlier lecture in the same week.)
• Your first lab meeting is officially scheduled for the FOLLOWING week — NOT the first week of classes. You will know from the previous lecture what is expected at that first lab meeting.
• EVERY item at the bottom of this page is needed for the first and/or second lab. The bookstore WILL OFTEN run out of things, so get yours first and let that be somebody else's problem. IF A TEXTBOOK IS OUT OF STOCK DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASS, THE BOOKSTORES CAN REORDER IN TIME TO GET IT FOR YOU BEFORE YOU NEED IT. But if you wait until the first lecture or longer, then find out it is out of stock, you will be in trouble.
• There are alternate sources for some of the equipment that you have to buy, and you can get the textbook shipped from your favorite online bookseller.
• Some of the required items are available from the ECE Honor Society, Eta Kappa Nu

SOME OF THE INFORMATION ON THIS SITE IS LEFT OVER FROM SPRING 2009. Downloads and specific assignments will change in the Summer 2009 semester. So, current students, the posted assignments may be of passing interest to you, but don't treat them as YOUR assignments if they are not yet updated. Labs will be updated as they approach.

You will need to have with you the following supplies before you come to lab:

• Laboratory Workbook, including syllabus, schedule, and more.
• Rapid Prototyping of Digital Systems, by Hamblen, Hall, & Furman (FIRST "QUARTUS II " Edition, NOT "SOPC" Edition.).
• Digital Design Laboratory Manual, by Thomas Collins and Christopher Twigg (ISBN: 978-0-7575-4267-1). THIS IS A NEW VERSION AND MUST BE PURCHASED FROM A LOCAL BOOKSTORE. You cannot share a copy, since some pages are torn out and turned in with written work.
• Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing, by Leslie C. Perelman, Edward Barrett, and James Paradis. (This will be used in a total of at least four ECE courses, starting here. Optionally, you may access the essential parts online, but this will be explained in the first lecture)
• Chip Set – A selection of chips to be used in various laboratory exercises (The bookstore has the kit, and the FAQ describes it more). During the current semester, it is possible to use older (LS) chips or the HCT (or HC) chips described in the lab manual.
• Protoboard – This board will be used in this and other ECE labs. (Again, the bookstore has it, or see the FAQ)
• Wire Kit – The wires in this kit are pre-stripped and pre-bent for easy insertion into the protoboard. (Yes, also in bookstore/FAQ.)
• GT Computer Account (one that allows you to log in to a campus Windows computer using a GT Active Directory account & password)

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