Introduction to digital circuits for engineering students-thinking in projects

This is a new approach for teaching and demonstrating the principles of designing testable digital circuits by using mini-projects. A mini-project in this context is a rather simple digital circuit which is utilized as a vehicle to transfer methods and knowledge to the students. Each mini-project has a practical application which can be understood easily and is implemented as an experiment on a special educational circuit board, GALEX, with an in-system programmable logic device, ispGAL22V10. The tool for design, synthesis and simulation is the evaluation version of the design environment, LOG/iC2. All lectures are held preferably in the laboratory with one PC and one GALEX board for each student. After presentation of the relevant theory in the lecture, each student has to design his own circuit for the lecture related mini-project. Hardware implementation is verified by external measurement. It is obvious that the systematic approach requires a design for testability from the very beginning. As a consequence, validation of all results is necessary and possible. Test vectors stored in a file must be used or even enhanced at every step of the design process. Students learn how to use all necessary hardware and software tools during the first mini-project in the very first lecture. This approach has already been in use for 3 semesters at the University of Heilbronn, Department of Manufacturing Engineering. The majority of the students say that they have a better motivation to study the course material because of the obvious commercial applications.