ECE 690 Digital Design Using Hardware Description Languages

An introductory graduate class to digital design using hardware description languages and to advanced digital design for programmable devices. Class covers the following topics: fundamentals of Hardware Description Languages; VHDL syntax and semantics; behavioral, functional, structural and register-transfer descriptions; combinational circuits; finite state machines; levels of system simulation; arithmetic and sequential blocks and interfaces; pipelined and systolic processors; advanced VHDL language features and extensions; specification of controllers and data path architectures; reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Array systems; verilog for VHDL programmers. Students must complete two computer-based software mini-projects and a project. Also offered as ECE 590 and may be taken only once for credit.