
	CSEE 4840 Embedded System Design Spring 2024

General Information

Class meets Mondays and Wednesdays, 1:10 - 2:25 PM in 451 CSB.

Mudd 1235 is the lab, which is filled with Linux workstations. Registered students will receive accounts on these machines and 24-hour badge access to this room.

Do the labs in groups of two or three. Project groups should be 3-5 students; aim for 4.

Staff

Name	Email	Office hours	Location
Prof. Stephen A. Edwards	sedwards@cs.columbia.edu	By appt.	Online
Martha Barker	mbarker@cs.columbia.edu		1235 Mudd
Abhilash Ganga	ag4797@columbia.edu	M 3-5	1235 Mudd
Vasileios Panousopoulos	vp2518@columbia.edu	T 12-2P	1235 Mudd
Marian Abuhazi	ma4107@columbia.edu		1235 Mudd

Overview

Prerequisites: ELEN E3910 or COMS W3843 or the equivalent. Embedded system architecture and programming. I/O, analog and digital interfacing, and peripherals. Weekly laboratory sessions and term project on design of a microprocessor-based embedded system including at least one custom peripheral. Knowledge of C programming and digital logic required. Lab required.

The goal of this class is to introduce you to issues in hardware/software interfacing, practical microprocessor-based system design issues such as bus protocols and device drivers, and practical digital hardware design using modern logic synthesis tools. You will put all of this to use in the lab where you will be given the opportunity to implement, using a combination of C and the SystemVerilog hardware description langauge, a small embedded system.

This is a lab course done in two parts. During the first part of the class, each student will implement the same "canned" designs designed by the instructor and be given substantial guidance. These are meant as an opportunity for you to learn the development tools and basic concepts. In the second part of the class, you will divide up into teams and each will design and implement a comparable project of their own with guidance from the instructor and TAs.

This course is a capstone in which students will integrate their knowledge of digital logic, programming, and system design to produce a real system. It is intended to complement ELEN 4340, Computer Hardware Design. 4840 focuses more on system-design issues and include a large section on hardware/software integration. Students in 4840 will use gates, processors, peripherals, software, and operating systems as building blocks.

Prerequisites

CSEE 3827, Fundamentals of Computer Systems or the equivalent. You must understand digital logic design. Prior experience with hardware description languages, FPGAs, or embedded processors is not required.

COMS 3157, Advanced Programming or the l equivalent. Specifically, C programming experience. While 4840 will teach you advanced aspects of embedded C programming, you need to come in with significant C experience.

COMS W4823, Advanced Digital Logic Design. While not a formal prerequisite, you are strongly encouraged to take it. In it, you will learn advanced logic design and HDL coding, both of which are crucial to success in 4840.

Schedule

Date	Lecture	Due
Wed Jan 17	Introduction: Embedded Systems
Mon Jan 22	SystemVerilog
Wed Jan 24	(lecture cancelled)
Mon Jan 29	SystemVerilog, via Zoom
Wed Jan 31	SystemVerilog, contd.
Mon Feb 5	Memory
Wed Feb 7	"
Fri Feb 9		Lab 1 Files
Mon Feb 12	Networking, USB, and Threads
Wed Feb 14	"
Mon Feb 19	Video
Wed Feb 21	Hardware/Software Interfaces
Mon Feb 26	The Avalon Bus	Proposal
Wed Feb 28	Device Drivers
Fri Mar 1		Lab 2 Files 16 GB SD Card Image
Mon Mar 4	Qsys and IP Core Integration Debugging
Wed Mar 6	Sprite Graphics Line drawing example Processors, FPGAs, and ASICs (1/2) Processors, FPGAs, and ASICs (2/2) Audio Waveforms
Mar 11-15	Spring Break
Mon Mar 18	(no lectures going forward)
Wed Mar 20
Fri Mar 22		Lab 3 Hardware files Software FIles Kernel Module Env.
Mon Mar 25
Wed Mar 27
Fri Mar 29		Design document
Mon Apr 1
Wed Apr 3
Mon Apr 8
Wed Apr 10
Mon Apr 15	Design reviews
Wed Apr 17	Design reviews
Mon Apr 22
Wed Apr 24
Mon Apr 29
May 9	Final Project Presentations

The Project

You'll perform a design-it-yourself project in the second half of the class. There are five deliverables for the project:

A short project proposal describing in broad terms what you plan to build and how you plan to build it
A detailed project design describing in detail the architecture of your project, both hardware and software. This should include block diagrams, memory maps, lists of registers: everything someone else would need to understand your design. You should have done some preliminary implementation work by this point to validate your design.
Your design document should also a plan of what you intend to complete by each of the three milestones.
Three milestones that you set for yourself: think of 25%, 50%, and 75% completion
A presentation on your project to the class
A final project report

Project teams should be three students or more.

The Design Document

This document should explain what you're going to build and how you're going to build it, but does not not need to include code. A corrected version of this document that reflects what you actually built should end up in your final project report.

A Sample Design Document

Include the following things:

A block diagram
A description of the algorithms your project will implement
Resource budgets, e.g., for on-chip memory
A detailed plan for the hardware/software interface: every register and bit

The Project Report

This is a critical part of the project and will be a substantial fraction of the grade.

Include the following sections:

An overview of your project: a revised version of your project proposal.
The detailed project design documents: a revised version of the project design.
A section listing who did what and what lessons you learned and advice for future projects
Complete listings of every file you wrote for the project. Include C source, SystemVerilog source, and things such as .mhs files. Don't include any file that was generated automatically.

Include all of this in a single .pdf file (don't print it out).

Also create a .tar.gz file (see the online documentation for the `tar' program to see how to create such a file. Briefly, create a file called `myfile' with the names of all the files you want to include in the archive and run tar zcf project.tar.gz `cat myfiles` to create the archive.) that just includes the files necessary to build your project, such as I did for the labs.

Sample Project: Wireframe

Wireframe Project Proposal An example of a complete proposal

Projects

2048-Game: (MB)

Grading	30% Labs
	10% Milestone 1
	15% Milestone 2
	20% Milestone 3
	25% Final Report and presentation
Late Policy	Zero credit for anything handed in after it is due without explicit approval of the instructor.
Collaboration Policy	Work in groups of three on the labs. You may consult others, but do not copy files or data. You may collaborate with anybody on the project, but must cite sources if you use code.

General Information

Staff

Overview

Prerequisites

Schedule

The Project

The Design Document

The Project Report

Sample Project: Wireframe

Projects

Resources

Other References

Recommended Texts

Links

Class Policies