Digital technology roadmap
Large volume of
production
Large
VHDL & C
Altera/Lattice/Xilinx
FPGA
Systems on
Programmable
Chip (SoPC)
(>100k logic gates)
Altera/Lattice/Xilinx
CPLD and FPGA
(2,5k – 100k logic gates)
Schematics
&
Chapter 3:
Microcontrollers (µC)
The versatile
GAL22V10
(500 logic gates)
Chapter 2:
FSM (Finite State
Machines)
Introductory circuits & FSM
Chapter 1:
Combinational
circuits
Professional
applications in
Telecommunications
Systems and
Telematics
PIC16/18 / Atmega
families of
microcontrollers
VHDL
The theory basics
and the classic 74
series / CMOS (SSI
& MSI)
Systems on Chip
(SoC) & ASICS
(GA)
Application specific
digital systems
(Datapath + control
unit)
Digital processors and
subsystems
(peripherals)
Digital Circuits & Systems
Advanced optional
subjects or research
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CSD competencies /learning goals
Programmable
logic devices and
VHDL
Microcontrollers
English
Self-directed learning
Oral and written
communication
Project management
Team work
Lab skills
(Systematically design, analyse, simulate, implement,
measure, report, present, publish on the web and reflect about
… digital circuits and systems using state-of-the-art digital
programmable devices, CAD/EDA software tools and
laboratory equipment
And show all your achievements constructing your ePortfolio
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CSD systematic instructional design
Learning objectives
and cross-curricular
skills
After completing the
course students have
to be able to …
Repeated every term
Course
evaluation
Student
questionnaires,
and instructors
processing
Coherence and
consistency
Continuous formative
and summative
assessment
Activities and
study time
scheduling
In and out of class
timetable, problembased learning,
application project
Systematic procedures for solving
assignments (plan, develop, simulate,
prototype, measure, report)
Active
methodologies
Individual and group assessing, group eportfolio
No need of traditional exams
Cooperative Learning,
integrated learning of
content and cross-curricular
skills, Learning by doing
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CSD specific content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Combinational circuits
Finite state machines
Microcontrollers
(50 h) – 2 ECTS
(FSM) (50 h) – 2 ECTS
(C) (50h) – 2 ECTS
Laboratory skills: logic analysers, debuggers/programmers, simulators, etc. …
•Proteus-ISIS (Labcenter)
•Quartus II (Altera)
•Proteus-VSM (Labcenter)
•Minilog, IC prog
•ispLEVER Starter or Classic (Lattice Semiconductor)
•WolframAlpha
•ISE (Xilinx)
•MPLAB (Microchip) / Atmel
Studio
•C compilers
•VHDL
•ModelSim (Mentor
Graphics),
•Active HDL (Aldec)
•ISim (Xilinx)
•Synplicity Synplify synthesis
(Synopsys)
• Altera Integrated Synthesis
•
XST (Xilinx Synthesis tools)
•Classic IC’s
• sPLD GAL22V10
•ispLEVER Classic
• Programmable logic devices (CPLD and FPGA)
from Altera, Lattice, Xilinx
•Training boards (UP2, DE2, Spartan 3AN Starter
Kit, MachXO USB Starter Kit, NEXYS 2, etc.
• PIC 16F/18F family of
microcontrollers , Atmel
microcontrollers
• Training boards PICDEM2+,
etc.
4
CSD generic tools
Oral and written
communication
English
Self-directed
learning
Team
work
Project
management
•Microsoft Office
• Google docs
• Visio 2010
• Google sites
•Thunderbird
• Web editing tools
•CMapTools
• Proofing tools
•Gantt diagrams
• Google translate
• etc.
5
Planning activities and study time in and
out of the classroom (6 ECTS – 150 h)
Weekly study plan
Activities
(~problem solving all the time)
(P1 .. P12)
Oral
presentation
Guided learning
Exercises
Individual test
Problem solving teamwork
session at classroom (2 h)
(tutorials)
Problem solving teamwork
session at laboratory (2 h)
Problem solving teamwork
session and assessment
at laboratory (1 h)*
12
weeks
12.5 h
per
week
(IT1, IT2, IT3)
Self-directed
learning
ePortfolio
Student-conducted
teamwork sessions
6 ECTS
(>6h)
Extra individual work
* Guided academic activities
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Web pages and blog
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Activities  Design of real world applications
Design using
PLD/VHDL
Design using
microcontrollers
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The content on the CSD web (units) is focused
on problem solving
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Cooperative Learning as the
instructional method
• Positive interdependence
Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve their common goal
• Individual accountability
All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work and
for mastery of all of the content to be learned
• Face-to-face promotive interaction
Group members providing one another with feedback, challenging one another’s
conclusions and reasoning, and teaching and encouraging one another
• Appropriate use of collaborative skills
Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice skills in
communication, leadership, decision-making, conflict management, and other
aspects of effective teamwork
• Regular self-assessment of group functioning
Team members periodically assess what they are doing well as a team and what
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they need to work on for functioning more effectively in the future
A typical 2-hour group work session
Up to 15 minutes
Questions from previous sessions or
exercises
Up to 15 minutes
Introduction of new concepts or materials
(generally, the problem to be designed)
30 minutes
Group work for revising concepts and
planning exercises
Up to 15 minutes
Questions, discussion and general
orientations
30 minutes
Group work for developing exercises
15 minutes
Conclusions and planning for the studentdirected sessions outside the classroom
11
Cooperative group ePortfolio and
instructor’s feedback
A semi structured group e-portfolio organised to show your learning
process and results
12
Student assessment
Assessment is not a mechanism for verifying
student knowledge, but an stimulus to guarantee
that (motivated) students will do the group tasks
which lead them to learn the content and skills
Assessment is another learning activity integrated
in the course dynamics  ePortfolio
Every piece of work counts for the final grade
• Final exams are no longer needed
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Assessment scheme

Rubrics and examples from previous terms, facilitates assessing
and classroom dynamics gives fast feedback
Projects
+
Cooperative
group projects
every week or
every two
weeks
An group oral presentation of a
course exercise
Individual
test
+
3 individual
exams
Examples to demonstrate
content learning, crosscurricular skills
development and reflection
Oral
Presentation
+
e-Portfolio
+ Participation
If failed
downgrade
project
marks
Ep1: Week 6, 4%
and attitude
Ep2: Week 12 , 8%
Q  P  48%  IT  24%  Oral _ P 10%  eP 12%  P & A  6%
Continuous assessment: you’ll always know where you are and what you have to do to get better marks
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Assessment scheme
A remark on the projects assessment: There is a link between the
IT and the weekly projects:
Projects (48%)
Individual
Test (24%)
P1 .. P4
IT1
P5 .. P8
IT2
P9 .. P12
IT3
 Projects will have a provisional group grade. In order to
consolidate it, students have to pass the corresponding IT. If a
student fails the IT, the corresponding projects will be
downgraded to “4”.
 At the exams weeks there will be another opportunity to pass or
improve IT1 (week 7) and IT2 and IT3 (week 14).
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Course evaluation and processing
This quality cycle has
to be repeated every
term
CSD WEB page 
Course
evaluation
Student questionnaires,
and instructors
processing
Learning objectives
and cross-curricular
skills
Coherence and
consistency
Continuous formative
and summative
assessment
Activities and
study time
scheduling
Active
methodologies
The evaluation’s aim is to prepare a plan with specific actions to improve teaching in
upcoming courses (problems redesigning, timetable scheduling, workload, teaching
materials, new software, demonstration exercises, etc.). Examples of feedback
(http://digsys.upc.es/ed/CSD/feedback/CSDfdbk.html) .
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