Computer Science 250: VLSI Systems Design

Fall 2010

Prof. John Wawrzynek

Prof. Krste Asanović

Dr. John Lazzaro

Lectures: Monday and Wednesday, 10:30AM-12:00PM, 320 Soda
Section: Thursday, 5:00PM-6:00PM, 310 Soda

Welcome to the Fall 2010 CS250 web page. More details to follow.


Detailed course info.
Handouts for CS250.
Papers for CS250.

Course Calendar with Handouts

Subject to Change.

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)