Course description
This course covers digital design, emphasizing microprocessors and microcontrollers as well as programmable logic devices, and provides an understanding of the fundamentals of computer circuitry. After examining analog-digital interfacing issues, students build a microcomputer from the chip level. They apply this computer first to assigned tasks and later to individual projects.†The student's microcomputer is based on an 8051-derivative microcontroller, chosen because it allows an easy transition, after the course is completed, from the course's pedagogically-useful transparent design (using external buses and memory) to practical single-chip implementations. Each meeting includes a laboratory session.