The main objective of this course is to familiarize students with digital circuits and systems and in particular, the internal operations and design of microprocessors – Reduced Instruction Set computers (RISC) and Complex Instruction Set Computers (CISC). Basic processor designs will be covered, including Sequential Logic and Memory Design. Having set a good foundation, advanced processing techniques such as Microprogramming, Cache Memory Management and an introduction to parallelism will be covered.

The learning experience is enhanced with computer-based exercises and assignments. The assignments will include: (1) a take home problem solving questions design to test student understanding of the theory; and (2) a report in the form of an IEEE paper structure on a survey of the state-of-the-art in digital circuits and systems. The intent is to expose the student to high level technical publications. Circuit simulation tools will be used throughout this course.