ECE 3803: Microprocessor System Design D Term 2011 Course Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Worcester Polytechnic Institute Instructor: Gene Bogdanov, AK020, gene@wpi.edu, 508-831-6640 TA: Qiben Yan, qbyan@wpi.edu Office Hours/Help Sessions: Gene Bogdanov AK020 MT--F 10-11 am (office hours) AK218 ---R- 10-11 am (HW solutions) AK113 MT-RF 5-6 pm (lab help) Qiben Yan AK113 --W-- 5-7 pm (HW help) See weekly schedule on the course website for updated information Lectures: Labs: AK219 MT-RF 9:00-9:50 am AK113 --WR- 2:00-4:50 pm; sections not enforced 3 lab assignments; all labs must be completed to receive a grade. Homework: 5 assignments; solutions provided, so no late submissions Exams: Textbook: 3 exams; closed book, closed notes; bring a calculator Steve B. Furber, ARM System-on-Chip Architecture, Addison-Wesley Professional (Pearson), 2000, ISBN: 0201675196. Course Website: http://ece.wpi.edu/courses/ece3803d2011/ or http://ece.wpi.edu/~gene/ece3803d2011/ Grading: Each Total 3 exams 15% 45% 3 labs 15% 45% 5 homework 2% 10% 100% Approximate grade thresholds (see section Grading Policy for details): A ( 88%), B (75%-88%), C (60%-75%), NR (<60%) Extra credit: see section Laboratory Assignments. 1
Immediate Action Items: Determine if you can allocate 20 hours/week to ECE 3803 labs. If not, please reconsider your schedule. Find a lab partner, not necessarily from your lab section. Let the instructor or TA know if you cannot find a lab partner. Sign out a lab kit from the TA at the first lab session (Wednesday). This lab session is also a good time to form groups. Course Description (from catalog): This course builds on the computer system material presented in ECE 2801. It covers the architecture, organization and instruction set of microprocessors. The interface to memory (RAM and EPROM) and I/O peripherals is described with reference to bus cycles, bus timing, and address decoding. Emphasis is placed on the design, programming and implementation of interfaces to microprocessor systems using a mixture of C and assembly language. Topics: bus timing analysis, memory devices and systems, IO and control signaling, bi-directional bus interfaces, instruction execution cycles, interrupts and polling, addressing, programmable peripheral devices, interface design issues including analog/digital and digital/analog conversion. Mixed language (C and Assembler) programming. Laboratory exercises: Use of standard buses for advanced IO design and programming, mixed language programming, standard bus timing, and interface design and implementation. Development of a complete standalone embedded computer system. Recommended Background: ECE 2801 Foundations of Embedded Computer Systems or equivalent. ECE 3801 Advanced Logic Design or at least some logic design background. Some background in C and assembly programming (not necessarily ARM). Detailed Course Description: Continuing the sequence started with ECE 2801, you will learn more about microprocessor systems, with emphasis on various hardware interfaces. A large portion is the course is laboratory exercises where you will be installing a microprocessor on a solder-less prototyping board, adding memory and peripherals to it, and programming it. In lectures, we will cover the architecture and organization of a low-end ARM microprocessor. We will also study its bus interface (including timing analysis), debugging, I/O peripherals, memory system components and some aspects of embedded operating systems. Although brief lecture notes will be posted on the course website, lecture attendance and note taking are strongly recommended. Many of the topics are not adequately covered in the book, and some are only covered in lecture. Many handouts will only be available in class. An approximate day-by-day schedule of ECE 3803 lecture topics follows. 2
Date Day Lecture Topic 3/14 M 1 Introduction, bus interface basics 3/15 T 2 Bus architecture, memory controller (EBI), wait states 3/16 W - 3/17 Th 3 EEPROM, address decoding, multi-byte data bus 3/18 F 4 ARM CPU architecture (registers, memory model) 3/21 M 5 ARM assembly language 3/22 T 6 ARM assembly (stack, subroutines) 3/23 W - 3/24 Th 7 Lab topics: JTAG, clock generator, startup code 3/25 F 8 ARM instruction encoding, Thumb instruction set, ARM organization (ARM7 pipeline) 3/28 M 9 ARM organization (ARM7 instruction timing) 3/29 T 10 ARM9 pipeline, read bus cycle timing (wait state calculation) 3/30 W - 3/31 Th 11 SRAM, write bus cycle timing 4/1 F Exam 1 Up to lecture 9 4/4 M 12 Write bus cycle timing 4/5 T 13 Memory-mapped I/O ports, keypad 4/6 W - 4/7 Th 14 Digital I/O, I/O side-effects 4/8 F 15 Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), DMA 4/11 M 16 SPI peripherals, ARM exceptions 4/12 T 17 ARM exceptions (interrupts), interrupt controller 4/13 W - 4/14 Th 18 Interrupt priorities, real-time scheduling 4/15 F Exam 2 Lectures 10-16 4/18 M - Patriots Day 4/18 T 19 (Thursday schedule) Scheduling, optimization, shared data 4/20 W - 4/21 Th - Project Presentation Day 4/22 F 20 Real-time operating systems (multitasking) 4/25 M 21 Real-time operating systems (inter-task communication) 4/26 T 22 Memory hierarchy (cache) 4/27 W - 4/28 Th 23 Cache, memory technology (SRAM, DRAM, FLASH) 4/29 F 24 Memory technology 5/2 M 25 Memory Management Unit (MMU), power management 5/3 T Exam 3 Lectures 17-24 3
Laboratory Assignments: The 3 lab assignments are 45% of your grade (15% each). Be prepared to commit 20 hours a week to the labs alone. If you have projects scheduled this term (MQP, IQP, ECE 2799), carefully consider whether you can handle the lab-intensive ECE 3803. The TA grades the lab reports. An ECE mailbox is required for the return of lab reports see the ECE office if not an ECE student. Be aware that the ECE department may retain copies of the lab reports. Lab groups: Forms groups of 2 in the first week of the course. If you cannot find a lab partner, talk to the TA or notify the instructor. You may choose a lab partner from a different lab section. ECE 3803 does not enforce lab sections. Lab signoff: You must demonstrate your lab circuit/software to the TA, tutor or the instructor, who will fill in point scores and initial the provided signoff sheet. The signoff sheet lists all the steps in your lab and the maximum point scores you may earn for each. Make sure to include your signoff sheet with your lab report (to receive a grade). Lab reports: Submit joint lab reports for your group. See the course website for a document explaining the lab report requirements. Lab completion policy: You must complete all labs to receive a grade in this course. Minimum completion criteria are listed on the signoff sheet for each lab. Not completing labs will earn you an Incomplete for the course. You are then allowed to complete the labs within one term to receive a grade; otherwise you will receive an NR. Historically, students generally have a hard time completing labs more than a week after the end of term. Late policy: There are separate due dates for lab signoff and report submission. Late signoff results in a reduction to your lab score equal to 25% of maximum points available at signoff. Similarly, late report submission results in an independent reduction equal to 25% of the maximum report score. (If both signoff and report are late, the total penalty is 25 points). Extra credit: If you sign off your lab at least one day early, you will receive a 5% bonus (score multiplied by 1.05). Your report must be on time to receive this bonus. Lab assignments may offer extra credit for challenging tasks that go beyond the minimal requirements. The maximum point bonus will be listed in the lab signoff sheet. In the past, students have also received unadvertised extra credit for adding interesting capabilities to the lab system. 4
Homework: The 5 homework assignments are 10% of your grade (2% each). Homework is not required to pass the course, but it will help you learn the material as well as prepare for the exams. Homework solutions will be distributed in class on the due dates. Late homework submissions will not receive credit. Homework submission is cut off 15 min into the lecture on the due date, no exceptions. You may submit early to the instructor directly or to his mailbox in the ECE office mailroom. On each due date the instructor will hold a help session after the lecture to explain the solutions and answer questions. The TA grades the homework. An ECE mailbox is required for homework return see the ECE office if not an ECE student. Be aware that the ECE department may retain copies of the homework submissions. Exams: The 3 exams are 45% of your grade (15% each). All exams are closed book, closed notes. All the datasheets you need will be attached to the exams. You will need a calculator. The exam duration is 50 minutes. A penalty may be imposed for late hand-in after 9:50 am. Come in earlier than 9:00 am to get a few extra minutes. Generally, the exam problems are simplified versions of homework problems. You may also receive a few questions related to the labs. No practice exams will be available. The exams are currently scheduled for Fridays. Solutions will be distributed by email shortly after each exam. The instructor will try to grade your exams by the following Monday. An ECE mailbox is required for exam return see the ECE office if not an ECE student. Be aware that the ECE department may retain copies of the exams. Generally, make-up exams will not be offered. The instructor can make exceptions for documented medical reasons, documented emergencies, and to honor religious observances. In cases of illness or emergency, notify the instructor as soon as possible. In case of religious obligation, notify the instructor at least a week before the planned absence. Be aware that any make-up exam will likely be after the end of the term. Grading Policy: Your final score is determined by adding the assignment scores weighted by 0.15 for labs, 0.15 for exams, and 0.02 for homework. Thresholds are then applied to determine the grades. The initial thresholds are 88 for A, 75 for B, and 60 for C. The instructor retains discretion to adjust these thresholds to better reflect the course difficulty, but never upward. In addition, gray areas exist in a 2 point band around each threshold. For example, if your score falls in the range 86-90, you may receive a B or an A after a closer evaluation of your overall performance at the instructor s discretion. Similarly, 73-77 is C or B, and 58-62 is NR or C. The most important criterion in the closer evaluation is the consistency of your performance, both across different assignments and over time. Performing much worse on exams than on labs is a minus. An improvement in performance towards the end of the course is a plus. The performance of your lab partner is also taken into consideration. 5
Academic Honesty: Read the WPI academic honesty policy http://www.wpi.edu/pubs/policies/honesty/. Briefly, collaboration among students is allowed during the preparation of labs and homework, but you are not permitted to copy someone else s work, including homework solutions, schematics, source code, lab report text, and exam answers. Copied work is often identifiable by the grader, even if the copy is not completely identical. Suspected acts of academic dishonesty will be reported to the department head and will be thoroughly investigated within the ECE department. Penalties for a first offence range from a drop by one letter grade to NR for the course (a request for an NR will not be granted). Subsequent offences carry stricter penalties. Cases where the evidence is compelling but the student does not admit responsibility are forwarded to the Campus Hearing Board. Disciplinary records may be shared with prospective employers only if the student approves (however, a denial of records is likely to be viewed negatively). Historical note: Unfortunately, the ECE 3803 lab reports have been the most susceptible to academic honesty violations due to the labs changing little from term to term. In the past, the lab graders have come across several older lab reports that have been partially copied or used as a basis for reports handed in. Copies of these reports are kept on hand and compared to student work. The comparison is not difficult, because none of those reports are of very good quality. If the errors and quirks in these reports are replicated, cheating is evident, and the case is submitted to the department head. Please do yourself a favor and avoid even looking at old lab reports. 6