Course Information for CS250: VLSI Systems Design

Spring 2017

Catalog Description: VLSI Systems Design

4 units. Three hours of lecture per week, plus one hour of section per week. Labs. Prerequisites: CS150 or EECS151 or EECS251A.

Class Schedule/Rooms

Lectures: Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30AM-2PM, 320 Soda Hall
Section: Tuesday 4:00 - 5:00, Location TBA

Instructor

John Wawrzynek, Professor, EECS Department
Email: johnw at berkeley
Office Hours: Tu 2:00-3:00 and by appointment, 631 Soda Hall

Teaching Assistant

James Martin
Email: jmartin at eecs
Office Hours: F 1:30-2:30, BWRC, 2108 Allston Way

You are strongly encouraged to use Piazza for all but very sensitive messages.
Please begin all email subject lines with [cs250] so that we may respond more quickly.

Newsgroup

The course has a Piazza site that we will use to answer questions.

Course Materials

There is an optional textbook CMOS VLSI Design: A Circuits and Systems Perspective by Neil H.E. Weste and David Money Harris.
This is suggested but optional and provides a great compnaion to the course.
Amazon Link

You can also learn some more about scala for use in chisel here.
There are plenty of tutorials on-line for learning scala as well including several moocs basic and advanced.

Course Grading

5%Class Discussion
25%Labs
70%Project

See also Departmental Grading Guidelines for Graduate Courses.

Labs

The four labs will provide hands-on experience with the VLSI tools and design space exploration. See the calendar page for more info.

Late Labs Policy

Each student gets a total of three late days they can spend to extend the lab deadlines for any reason. No other extensions will be given, unless for serious documented emergencies.

Collaboration Policy

Students are encouraged to discuss the lab assignments with other students, but complete their own labs, write their own code, and turn in their own lab report.