Work in progress - PLD-based introductory digital design in a studio setting

Introductory Digital Design courses are unique in that they introduce a design experience and provide exposure to basic laboratory practices early in the electrical engineering curriculum. These course attributes create an unprecedented opportunity for a properly constructed course to excite students about the basic tenets of design and engineering. This paper outlines a studio- based introductory digital design course utilizing modern tools to introduce and apply basic digital logic principles. The unifying theme of this course is to introduce digital logic concepts in the context of design problems whose solutions rely on the newly introduced concepts. The design and circuit implementation aspect of this course is facilitated by Programmable logic devices (PLDs), computer aided design (CAD) tools, and PLD-based development boards. The course topics include basic digital logic concepts through intermediate-level Finite State Machine design; a Hardware Description Language (VHDL) supports the design objectives of the course. The design objectives and depth of material covered by the course are achieved by focusing primarily on digital design topics that are most relevant to PLD-based digital hardware design.