ECE 171
Digital Circuits
Chapter 0
The Course Instructor and You
Herbert G. Mayer, PSU
Status 2/8/2016
1
Who is Your Instructor?
 Instructor is a German immigrant to the USA;
worked in US computer industry and academia
 Immigrated to the USA, due to marriage with US
citizen in Berlin
 Became naturalized US citizen in 1995
 MS EECS (electrical engineering an computer
science) UCSD 1983; beautiful beach & campus!
 PhD CS (“Informatik”, equivalent to Computer
Science) TU Berlin 1995; awesome city, now
united! Dissertation published as book at Springer
Verlag © 1996
 Professional focus at Intel on compiler
optimization, HW validation, alias analysis,
programming languages, VLIW, multiprocessing
2
Who is Your Instructor?
 PhD Thesis on automatic generation of MP object
code via alias analysis of source program
 Retired in 2011 after 24 years at Intel Corp.


Implemented Compiler for systolic array architecture
1980s
Managed Intel CPU tuning lab & CPU validation in new
Intel processors
 Teaching computer science since 1983 at SDSU
San Diego, and since 1987 PSU
 Teaching experience 2004 in Shanghai, at IIIST
 Loved China and teaching there so much that I
decided to participate in CCUT & PSU cooperation
 Committed to academic years 2014-2016
3
Goals of ECE 171
 Class is first part of a freshman sequence
introducing elements of electric circuits
 Emphasizes major threads of design process,
problem solving, teamwork and communication
 Students learn how to synthesize circuit elements
into functional, simple electric circuits
 Lab activities familiarize students with instruments
to quantify characteristics of eclectic circuits and
their elements
4
Grading, Homework, Late Hand-In
 Acquire up to 1,000 points total = 100%
 Upper and lower 15% yield a + or – grade variation
 3 homeworks at 100 points each = 300 points
 Homework to be emailed before the start of class on
the due date
 Homework emails should be sent on time and you
should use the subject line “ECE 171 HW x”, where ‘x’
is the homework number
 Work that is handed in 1 second up to a day late
experiences 10% deduction of the total points
 Each additional day late: another 10% deducted
 A Homework that is 4 days late or later is not
accepted
5
Silver Bullet
 One single time each student is allowed to hand in
homework up to 3 days late without penalty
 This is called the CS Silver Bullet
 Silver Bullets cannot be split, traded, or sold on the
black market
 If in the end you did not consume the silver bullet,
you cannot trade it in for cash  or a better grade
 While tracking homework grades, consumption of
the silver bullet is tracked
 Note that the maximally 3 late days worth of Silver
Bullet cannot be applied to 2 different late
homeworks, even if they are both, say, just 1 day
late each
6
Extra Credit for You
 Extra Credit: is a way to improve your grade by up to
a half grade, i.e. up to a maximum of 50 points total
 Extra Credit is granted for good ideas expressed in
class, constructive questions and contributions in
class, identifying errors in class material
 Volunteers may present the HW or select topics in
class, 10 min. each for a few extra credit points
 Any error in class material, even the slightest typo –
but only pointed out the first time– is worth some
extra credit
 Presenting smart homework solutions in class can
deserves extra credit; you need to volunteer for such
presentations proactively
 Each time you catch and correct an error made by
the instructor you receive extra credit, though the
instructor will claim: “This was a deliberate error to
test your alertness!” 
7
Credit of Source
 I received, with very generous and gracious
permission, all lecture material from my colleague
Mark Faust here in the ECE department at PSU
 These lecture were enhanced by me in very minor
ways by small contributions from my side
 All good ideas are copied from Mark Faust. If some
errors slipped in over time, they are all and entirely
mine of my own making, maintaining, modifying
these lecture notes
 I express many, many thanks to Mark Faust!!!
8
Who are You?
Briefly, a few students volunteer to articulate in class,
explaining:









Your name
Your field of study, major, and current progress
Why do you take ECE 171?
What is your expectation of this class?
What is your minimal goal for this class?
Which is your ideal learning goal?
Have you worked in the EE or computer industry?
Which computer subjects are you interested in?
Anything else relevant to this course
9