Syllabus

Contact Information

Lab Schedule

Office Hours

Reference Materials

In addition to the reading materials required in the lecture, the laboratory part of this class will require the use of many of the reference documents provided by Xilinx for their products. These reference materials give details information on the design of Xilinx hardware components and will be invaluable to completing the projects in this class. A list of interesting reference materials can be found on the website on the Reference Materials page.

Expectations

During this course students will be expected to learn basic concepts in computer systems design and assembly level programming. This course is FPGA based and makes use of the Xilinx XUP development board. As such, students will learn to be proficient with the Xilinx development environment and Xilinx FPGAs. By the end of the course students will be expected to design and program simple embedded systems using these tools.

This is not an introductory level course. While the TAs in your class are more than happy to answer your questions, they will not do your projects for you. This means that they will help you to understand the general concepts in the class, they will help you with problems that you encounter with the Xilinx tools, and they will help you debug and fix specific problems in your project. They will not, however, repeat lectures for students that missed class or answer questions which are general or vague, such as "What is wrong with my code?". As an upper-level course, you are expected to work outside of class on your project and come to class prepared with questions.

Grading

Students are also expected to demonstrate their working designs on the due date for the given laboratory. Demonstrations are done in class with your TA and they must be completed by the end of that lab. If you fail to demonstrate your project by the due date you can demonstrate your project the next laboratory period for a 25% penalty. Laboratory projects will receive a grade of 0% if they are more than one week late. There are no exceptions to these rules unless you have received special permission from your TA before the due date.

In addition to the in-class demonstration, students will be expected to turn in a project report for every laboratory. These project reports should follow the guidelines established in the Project Reports documentation. These project reports are worth 25% of your overall project score and will be graded thoroughly. If you fail to turn in a report for your project you will be penalized 50% on your overall project score. Project reports along with all other laboratory submission materials are due Friday on the week that the project is demonstrated to your TA.

Grading Disputes

Questions about grading and grading disputes will not be answered during the laboratory period. If you have a question about your grade or think that you deserve more points then you should visit your TA during their office hours. If you feel that you deserve more points on your grade then you must demonstrate to your TA exactly why you deserve more points. Vague requests for more points will not be successful. Additionally, the TAs reserve the following rights when reassessing a grade:

1. The entire project or homework will be regraded, not just the problem which you feel you deserve more points on. This means that you could lose or gain points on any problem.
2. If you compare your work to another student's work then both student's will have their work regraded. This means that your friend could lose points on their work if we graded it incorrectly the first time.
3. Grades will not be reassessed more than two weeks after they are returned. Do not try to get more points on all of your projects and homeworks at the end of the semester, it will not work.