Welcome to the Fall 2010 CS250 web page. More details to follow.
| Week | Date | Instr | Lecture | Assignments |
| 1 | Mon Aug 30 | JW | Lecture 1: Course Introduction: History of VLSI in computer science. Early design representations and CAD, sIlicon foundry model, multi-project chips. Overview of course structure and student requirements. Lecture slides. |
Lab 1 out |
| Wed Sep 1 | JW | Lecture 2: VLSI Introduction. Chip-level alternatives: ASIC, FPGAs, full-custom, gate-array, via-programmable. IC Fabrication. RTL and other design representations. Quick tool flow overview. Lecture slides. | ||
| Thur Sep 2 | YL | Section 1: Lab 1 & Tool Flow Overview. Section slides. | ||
| 2 | Mon Sep 6 | Labor Day | ||
| Wed Sep 8 | JW | Lecture 3: Physical Realities. Part I: Area & Timing. Circuit and wire-delay modeling. Circuit-level timing closure. Static timing tools. Lecture slides. | ||
| Thur Sep 9 | YL | Section 2: Python scripting, Verilog coding guidelines. Section slides. | ||
| 3 | Mon Sep 13 | JL | Lecture 4: Physical Realities, Part II: Energy and power. Power consumption mechanisms. Power modeling and power-aware design overview. Power analysis tools. Power grid tools. Lecture slides. |
Lab 2 out Lab 1 due (before class) |
| Wed Sep 15 | All | Paper Discussion: Papers | ||
| Thur Sep 16 | YL | Section 3: Lab 2, RISC-V RTL Implementation and Synthesis. Optimizing your Register file. Section slides. | ||
| 4 | Mon Sep 20 | JL | Lecture 5: System Context: I/O signaling, Off-chip DRAM. Lecture slides. |
Lab 3 out |
| Tue Sep 21 | YL | Section 4: Optimizing your ALU. (Section moved for this week. Extended office hours on September 20th, Monday from 3pm to 5pm.) Section slides. | ||
| Wed Sep 22 | All | Paper Discussion: Papers | ||
| 5 | Mon Sep 27 | KA | Lecture 6: Project details. Lecture slides. | |
| Wed Sep 29 | KA | Lecture 7: Overview of hardware design patterns. Lecture slides. | ||
| Thur Sep 30 | YL | Section 5: Setup & Hold time violations. Common questions for Lab 2 and 3. Section slides. | ||
| 6 | Mon Oct 4 | KA | Lecture 8: Memory and Memory Design Patterns Lecture slides. | Labs 2 & 3 due (before class) |
| Wed Oct 6 | KA | Lecture 9: Patterns for processing units and communication links. Lecture slides. | ||
| Thur Oct 7 | YL | Section 6: Basics on IC Compiler, Discussion on RISC-V baseline processor. Project group discussions. No section slides. | ||
| 7 | Mon Oct 11 | JL | Lecture 10: Design verification strategies. Debugging. Unit testing. Regression suites. Lecture slides. | Project Proposal due (before class) |
| Wed Oct 13 | All | Initial project proposal presentations. | ||
| Thur Oct 14 | YL | Office hours | ||
| 8 | Mon Oct 18 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | |
| Mon Oct 18 | YL | Office hours | ||
| Wed Oct 20 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | ||
| 9 | Mon Oct 25 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | |
| Mon Oct 25 | YL | Office hours | ||
| Wed Oct 27 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | ||
| 10 | Mon Nov 1 | All | Public group progress presentations. | |
| Mon Nov 1 | YL | Office hours | ||
| Wed Nov 3 | All | Public project progress presentations. | ||
| 11 | Mon Nov 8 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | |
| Mon Nov 8 | YL | Office hours | ||
| Wed Nov 10 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | ||
| 12 | Mon Nov 15 | All | Public group progress presentations. | |
| Mon Nov 15 | YL | Office hours | ||
| Wed Nov 17 | All | Public group progress presentations. | ||
| 13 | Mon Nov 22 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | |
| Mon Nov 22 | YL | Office hours | ||
| Wed Nov 24 | All | Private project meetings with groups. | ||
| Thur Nov 25 | Thanksgiving | |||
| 14 | Mon Nov 29 | All | Final Project Presentations | |
| Wed Dec 1 | All | Final Project Presentations | ||
| 15 | Tue Dec 7 | All | Final Project Reports Due 6AM (No Extensions) |