Physics 4DA3/4DB3/4D06

DIGITAL LOGIC and COMPUTER SYSTEMS

2010-2011




(Sep-Apr)

Tue & Fri: 8:30 - 9:20 JHE/329

L01: Mon: 8:30-11:20 BSB/B157

L02: Fri: 14:30-17:20 BSB/B157

L03: Thu 8:30-11:20 BSB/B157


Dr. Nicholas Bock

NRB/230

905-525-9140 ext 21437

E-mail: bockn (at) mcmaster.ca

Office Hours: Friday: 9:30-10:30

 



OBJECTIVE:

To provide the student with the skills necessary to function effectively in the areas of digital logic design, machine languages programming and interfacing of hardware/software systems.

COURSE SUMMARY:

The lecture portion covers the basic material required to understand and design efficient and reliable logic systems, both combinational and sequential, concepts of coding and information, devices for analog/digital conversion and assorted topics deemed relevant to this continuously evolving field. Students are required to complete two take-home assignments and to prepare and present a 10 min oral presentation based on the topic that will be provided. The mark for this presentation will be added to the assignments.

The well-equipped laboratory provides the student the opportunity to gain a high degree of competence in hardware and software design and implementation. Students are required to do both laboratory assignments and short term projects in which each student designs, assembles and demonstrates the hardware and software he has devised. Creativity and ingenuity are encouraged as is the discipline of proper documentation.

Successful completion of the course requires both an indication of basic knowledge, gained through in-class quizzes, and the satisfactory completion of the laboratory assignments and projects. Since the emphasis of the course centres upon demonstrable skills, the laboratory component constitutes about 2/3 of the final mark. Details of the laboratory assessment procedure will be discussed in the laboratory. The remaining mark is comprised of an equally weighted average of term marks with test marks. Students unable to write a term test for medical reasons will be required to sit an equivalent oral examination within one week following the test, to receive credit. Students are expected to be familiar with the "Statement on Academic Ethics" and the "Senate Resolutions on Academic Dishonesty". Standard conversion from mark as a percentage to letter grade will be used. Marks may be adjusted at the discretion of the instructors to reflect exceptional circumstances.

Topics covered in this course:

1. Binary Systems - binary words and codes, integers, floating point representation, binary-coded decimal, 2's complement, seven-segment display code, Gray code, serial and parallel realizations, baud rate.

2. Logic Circuitry - compensation, transistor states, diode and TTL gates, propagation delay, tristate operation, decoders, multiplexers, function realization.

3. Sequential Devices - bistable, monostable, astable multivibrators, AC coupling and edge-triggering, comparators, Schmitt triggers, pulse width discrimination.

4. Sequential Circuits - Flip flops, data and shift registers, ripple counters, up-down counting, synchronous counting, mod 5 counter, ring counter, circulating register, adders, bus organization, read only memories, simple computer system.

5. Error Detecting and Correcting Codes - weight of a binary word, Hamming distance between words, register set structure errors on a binary symmetric channel, error detection, correction.

6. Computer Architecture and Programming - registers, memory, C.P.U., instruction set and fields, operation cycle, Data General architecture, structured programming, pseudocode and flow diagrams, addressing modes, stacks, reverse polish.

7. Fundamental Devices-comparators, Scmitt triggers, operational amplifiers, linear gates.

8. Digital-To-Analogue/Analogue-To-Digital Conversion-weighted resistance DAC, flash, counting, successive approximation and voltage-to-time converters.

9. Applications-pulse-height analysis, transient recording, single sampling recording.

10. Signal Analysis- time and frequency domain representation, statistical signals, autocorrelation, Johnson and Shot noise, sampling .

11. Signal-To-Noise Considerations-linear time-invariant systems, filters, signal averaging.

12. Correlation Techniques-cross-correlation, lock-in amplifiers, real-time correlators, time-interval measurements.

13. Linear Sequential Machines-logical signals, feed-forward, feed back structures, scrambling, descrambling, autonomous linear sequential machines and pseudo random number generators.

 

EVALUATION:

Assignments 10%
Oral Presentations 10%
Term Test 20%
Laboratory Assignments 24%
Projects 36%

Standard grading will be used. Late assignments and reports will not be accepted unless accompanied by a validated medical report.


Academic DishonestyAcademic dishonesty consists of misrepresentation by deception or by other fraudulent means and can result in serious consequences, e.g. the grade of zero on an assignment, loss of credit with a notation on the transcript (notation reads: "Grade of F assigned for academic dishonesty"), and/or suspension or expulsion from the university.

It is your responsibility to understand what constitutes academic dishonesty. For information on the various kinds of a academic dishonesty please refer to the Academic Integrity Policy, specifically Appendix 3, located at:

http://www.mcmaster.ca/univsec/policy/AcademicIntegrity.pdf

The following illustrates only three forms of academic dishonesty:

2010.09.07