The course is mandatory for the BSc-level programme in Electrical Engineering and will be offered in the second period of the third year. It is focussed on the basics of Digital Electronics, considering and studying the different aspects of digital design. A lot of methodologies related to basic digital circuits up to complex processing systems will be shown and used. The knowledges and the abilities developed in this module will constitue the solid bases of the following corses where digital systems will be considered in more details.

- Knowledge of basic combinatorial circuits and their synthesis tools;
- Knowledge of sequential circuits and their synthesis tools;
- Knowledge and ability in the use of a Hardware Description Language such as VHDL: description and syntesis of digital blocks.
- Knlowledge of complex programming digital circuits (FPGAs);
- Knowledge of memory structures and architectures, and their use in processing systems.
- Knowledge of microcontrollers architectures and applications.

Boole's Algebra; elementary combinatorial and sequential digital gates; FSM concept, basic processor architecture and its programming paradigm (assembler language)

- Combinatorial circuits: synthesis techinques for basic and arithmetic circuits (2 CFU)
- Sequential circuits: elementary FSMs and complex control architectures (ASM charts) (2 CFU)
- Hardware Description Languages (VHDL): statements, data structures and coding techniques for hardware description and modelling (2 CFU);
- Memories: circuits, architectures and applications (1 CFU);
- Microcontrollers: internal architecture, programming model and use; peripheral units (3 CFU);

Practice classes will focus on small digital designs (personal calculator required).
Lab sessions consist in the development, synthesis and implementation of digital designs, described using VHDL, and microcontrollers, possibly integrated into FPGAs . Evaluation boards will be available to test the designs. 7 or 8 lab sessions will be provided by groups of 2 or 3 students. Homeworks are required to prepare the lab sessions. A report is required for the lab sessions and will be considered in the final grade.

The learning material used for the lessons is made available through the course website. Notes provided by the professor.

Reference books:
"Fundamentals of Digital Logic with VHDL Design (Third Edition)" di Stephen Brown e Zvonko Vranesic , Mc Graw Hill
'Microcontroller Theory and Applications:HC12 and S12' (Second Edition), D. Pack, S. Barrett, Pearson, Prentice Hall.

The written examination is based on the design exercices and takes 2 hors. At least 18/30 is required to pass to the oral examination that will also consider the lab reports. Final grade is a weighted mean of the written and oral exams (weigthed 0.8) and lab reports (weigthed 0.2).