Digital Circuit Design for Computer Science Students: An Introductory Textbook

by Niklaus Wirth

Overview

This book emerged from lecture notes of a course taught in the second year to students of Computer Science at the Federal Institute of Tech­ nology, Zurich. The topic of hardware design plays a relatively minor role in Compu­ ter Science curricula at many universities. Most courses concentrate on the various aspects of theory, software, and of information systems. Students therefore obtain few opportunities to deal with con­ crete engineering problems and physical devices. We consider this as rather unfortunate, particularly for technical universities. As a result, we observe a growing gap between interest in and understanding of design issues involving not only software but also hardware and inter­ faces. This is regrettable at a time when new and advanced solutions to many problems are often crucially influenced by recent hardware developments, at a time when the engineer needs to be competent in both software and hardware issues in order to fmd an optimally integrated, competitive solution. It turns out that the hesitation of many students in Computer Science to take an active interest in hardware - his or her daily tool! - does not only stem from a preference of "clean", abstract concepts with a corre­ sponding distaste for dealing with concrete components, construction techniques, and the "dirty" realities inflicted by nature, but also stems from the lack of a bridge between the two realms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783540585770
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	08/23/1995
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1995
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

1. Transistors and Gates.- 1.1. Gates with Bipolar Transistors.- 1.2. Gates with Field Effect Transistors.- 1.3. Electrical Characteristics of Gates.- 2. Combinational Circuits.- 2.1. Boolean Algebra.- 2.2. Graphical Notations.- 2.3. Circuit Simplification.- 2.4. The Decoder or Demultiplexer.- 2.5. The Multiplexer.- 2.6. The Adder.- 2.7. The Adder with Fast Carry Generation.- 2.8. The Multiplier.- 2.9. The Read-Only Memory (ROM).- 2.10. The Combinational PLD.- 2.11. The Programmable Gate Array.- 2.12. Dynamic Behaviour of Combinational Circuits.- 3. Latches and Registers.- 3.1. The SR-Latch.- 3.2. The D-Latch.- 3.3. The D-Register.- 3.4. The JK Register.- 4. Synchronous, Sequential Circuits.- 4.1. The State Machine.- 4.2. The Shift Register.- 4.3. The Synchronous Binary Counter.- 4.4. A Design Methodology for State Machines.- 4.5. The PLD and the FPGA with Registers.- 4.6. Timing and Practical Considerations.- 5. Bus Systems.- 5.1. The Concept of a Bus.- 5.2. The Open-Collector Circuit.- 5.3. The Tri-state Gate.- 6. Memories.- 6.1. Static Memories.- 6.2. Dynamic Memories.- 6.3. Dual-Port Memories.- 7. Formal Description of Synchronous Circuits.- 7.1. Motivation.- 7.2. Lola: A Formal Notation for Synchronous Circuits.- 7.3. Examples of Textual Circuit Descriptions.- 8. Design of an Elementary Computer.- 8.1. The Design of von Neumann.- 8.2. Choice of a Specific Architecture.- 8.3. The Arithmetic-Logic Unit (ALU).- 8.4. The Control Unit.- 8.5. Phase Control and Instruction Decoding.- 8.6. An Implementation Using Standard Parts.- 8.7. Interrupts.- 9. Multiplication and Division.- 9.1. Multiplication of Natural Numbers.- 9.2. Division of Natural Numbers.- 9.3. Extending the ALU by a Multiplier-Quotient Register.- 10. Design of a Computer Based on a Microprocessor.- 11. Interfaces Between Asynchronous Units.- 11.1. The Handshake Prool.- 11.2. Processor-Bus Interfaces.- 11.3. Adding an I/O Interface to the Hercules Computer.- 12. Serial Data Transmission.- 12.1. Introduction.- 12.2. Synchronous Transmission.- 12.3. Asynchronous Transmission.- 12.4. A Buffered Transmitter and Receiver.- Appendix 1: Implementations Based on the Programmable Gate Array AT6002.- 1. The Laboratory.- 2. The Structure of the Gate Array.- 3. The FPGA Extension Board.- 4. A Set of Design Examples.- Appendix 2: Syntax of Lola.- Selected Design Exercises.