Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The University of Alabama in Huntsville

Fall 2009

CPE 495-01: Computer Engineering Design I

Course Home Page: http://www.ece.uah.edu/~jovanov/CPE495/CPE495.html

Notes: http://www.ece.uah.edu/~jovanov/CPE495/notes/495notes.html

Lectures Thursday 6:00 – 9:00 PM, EB 258

Laboratory      Room 258 Engineering Building

Description This is the first in the two-course senior capstone design sequence. The focus of this class is the application of techniques to the design of electronic systems that have digital hardware and software components. Students will apply the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work and incorporate appropriate engineering standards to solve real-world design problems and design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability.

Focus Efficient digital system design often involves the careful consideration of hardware/software design trade-offs -- areas that are the cornerstone of the Computer Engineering discipline. In this course, students must be able to create new designs, evaluate the effectiveness and costs of each design alternative, document the design process, and demonstrate a working prototype of their final design.

Prerequisites CPE353 (Software Design and Engineering), EE 315 (Introduction to Electronic Analysis and Design), and CPE323 (Introduction to Embedded Systems). Must be taken in the same academic year as CPE 496.

Text Ralph M. Ford, Chris S. Coulston, Design for Electrical and Computer Engineers, Theory, Concepts, and Practice, McGraw-Hill, 2008.
ISBN 978-0-07-338035-3

References     

· Chris Nagy, Embedded System Design using the TI MSP430 Series, Elsevier Science, 2003. (ISBN 075067623x)

· Gerald Luecke, Analog and Digital Circuits for Control System Applications: Using the TI MSP430 Microcontroller, Newnes, 2004. (ISBN 0750678100)

· MSP430 Family, User's Guide, Texas Instruments, 1996.

· IAR Embedded Workbench Tutorial, http://www.ece.uah.edu/~jovanov/msp430/iar_tut.pdf

· ExpressPCB, http://www.expresspcb.com

· Aleksandar Milenkovic, Getting Started with the MSP430 IAR Workbench,
                    University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2008. http://www.ece.uah.edu/~jovanov/msp430/GettingStartedWithMSP430_IAR_EW.pdf

· Getting Started with the SDCC/MetaLink 8051 C Cross Compiler/Assembler and the XESS XS 40 Rapid Prototyping Platform , B. Earl Wells and Sin Ming Loo, University of Alabama in Huntsville, August 2002. http://www.ece.uah.edu/~wells/nsf/xilinx_sdcc_meta_xs40.pdf

· Getting Started with Xilinx Design Tools and the XS 40 Rapid Prototyping Platform, B. Earl Wells and Sin Ming Loo, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2000. http://www.ece.uah.edu/~wells/nsf/xilinx_xs40.pdf

Instructor Dr. Emil Jovanov

                              Electrical and Computer Engineering

                              213, Engineering Building

                              Phone: 824 6632

                              e-mail:      jovanov@ece.uah.edu

http://www.ece.uah.edu/~jovanov

Office hours Tuesday 1:30-3:30 PM, Thursday 10-11:30 AM, and by appointment.

Lab Assistant

Malikarjun Avula (Max)         ma0004@email.uah.edu                 phone: 824-3485

Lab office hours (EB248):

· Tuesday:                 10 AM – 1 PM

· Wednesday:           1 – 3 PM

· Thursday:                4 – 6 PM

Grading          

Academic misconduct of any type will not be tolerated. Students are expected to conform to the UAH policies concerning academic misconduct as outlined in Section 8.32 of the current UAH Student Handbook.

Individual Assignments:

Homeworks (2%, 5%, and 5%)                                                                         12%

Tests (Engineering Design, Ethics, Patent)                                                     15%

Individual participation                                                                                        10%

Group Assignments:

CPE495 Design Project

· Project proposal                                                                                      5%

· Prototype Implementation & demo                                                       10%

CPE 496 Project Proposal                                                                                8%

CPE495 Final Report (Trade-off analysis, economic analysis,                     10%

      safety analysis, manufacturability analysis) 

CPE 496 Design Review and presentation                                                     5%

CPE 496 System functionality                                                                           25%

Design Groups:

The scope of most modern day design projects in industry and government require that sizable design teams be assembled. The ability to work in groups is considered by industry experts to be a critical skill to master for any engineering student. All group proposals must be justified using background and interests of individuals in a group to diversify the skill set present within each group. A written justification must be submitted to the instructor for final approval.

Group Leaders:

The class will be divided up into roughly equal size groups of approximately three people. A member of each group will be designated the Group Leader. The Group Leader's task will be to oversee the managerial aspects of the project at hand in addition to his/her technical duties. It is the responsibility of the Group Leader to meet with the design group on a regular basis and send a weekly progress report to the instructor via E-mail. The role of group leader will be rotated in a uniform manner among the students of the group.  During the first week of group activities each group will submit to the instructor via E-mail a proposed Group Leader rotation schedule.

Group Projects:

In addition to the individual work to be performed by each student, there will be two group demonstrations. The first one (CPE495 project) should resolve the critical components of the larger project (CPE496 project). Ideally, the projects should demonstrate the hardware/software design process using simulators, PCB design software, embedded software, and workstation software. Students will be asked to investigate design alternatives, which span the hardware/software continuum, and to identify the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, as described in the System Design section. These alternatives must be completely described in the design documentation. Each group will also be required to demonstrate a working prototype of their design at the Final Design Review and to maintain a complete laboratory notebook where all pertinent work will be archived.

CPE 496 Project Proposals

A major focus of this course will be to prepare students for a more open-ended design experience in the second Computer Engineering Design course – CPE 496. Throughout the semester students will be exposed to a number of opportunities and high-level design ideas. Students are encouraged to use CPE495 Design Projects to test ideas for CPE496 project. By the end of the semester students will be formed into groups (which may or may not be the same groups for the CPE 495 design project) and each group will present their design idea in the form of a preliminary design review. Each group must present a thorough analysis of the state of the art in the field of the project (journal and conference papers, patents, web sites, and other sources). The preliminary design review will be made at the end of the semester and will be open to the general engineering community for comments and critique.

Design & Patent Process

Students will be required to prepare and present an individual patent application for an idea they have developed. The application must confirm to US Patent Office standard and contain a thorough search of prior art. Students are expected to use audio visual aids for the presentation of their application.

Examinations

Three tests will cover design process, ethic, health/safety, environmental, legal, and social issues associated with engineering design, which will be covered during regular lectures.

Attendance Policy

Students are expected to attend on a regular basis lectures and presentations. Students can have up to three unexcused absences per semester.

Important Dates

Homework #1                              Thursday, September 3, 2009.

Homework #2                              Thursday, September 10, 2009.

Homework #2                              Thursday, October 1, 2009.

Test 1: Design Process             Thursday, September 10, 2009.

Test 2: Ethics                               Thursday, October 29, 2009.

                  Test 3: Patent application          Thursday, November 12, 2009.

                  CPE495 Project Proposal         Thursday, September 17, 2009.

CPE496 Proposals                    Thursday, October 15, 2009.

                  CPE495 Demonstration            Thursday, November 5, 2009.

                  Preliminary Design Review       Thursday, November 19, 2009.

Last day of Class &
Project Documentation:        Thursday, December 3, 2009.

Course Outline

· Introduction, The Engineering Design, Projects, Teams and Teamwork

· The Requirements Specification, Concept Generation and Evaluation, System Design

· Embedded Systems: Issues and Applications

· PCB Design Process

· Testing and System Reliability

· Project Ideas

· Project Management

· Oral Presentations Guidelines

· CPE496 Proposal Presentations

· Ethical and Legal Issues

· Patent applications, patent process

· Preliminary Design Review

CPE 495-01 Fall 2009         Emil Jovanov
Class Schedule

Class No.	Date	Lecture	Activity Due	Textbook
1	8/20/09	Introduction, Teams and Teamwork, Project Description The Engineering Design Process		· Ch1: The Engineering Design Process (3-15) · Ch2: Project Selection and Needs Identification (17-34) · Ch9: Teams and Teamwork (171-182)
2	8/27/09	Concept Generation and Evaluation, System Design		· Ch3: The Requirements Specification (35-58) · Ch4: Concept Generation and Evaluation (59-78) · Ch5: System Design: Functional Decomposition (79-102) · Ch6: System Design: Behavior Models (103-126)
3	9/03/09	Low Power Embedded Microcontrollers: Design Issues PCB Design Process	· HW1: Application note and design selection
4	9/10/09	Design Process Video Presentation	· HW2: PCB Design · Test 1: Design Process Case Study
5	9/17/09	Student presentations	· CPE495 Project proposal
6	9/24/09	Testing, and System Reliability		· Ch7: Testing (135-154) · Ch8: System Reliability (155-182)
7	10/01/09	Discussion of project Ideas for CPE496 Project Management, Oral Presentations Gudelines	· HW3: Programming Assginment	· Ch10: Project Management (195-212) · Ch12: Oral Presentations Gudelines (223-231)
-	10/08/09	Fall break
8	10/15/09	CPE496 Proposal Presentations	· CPE496 Proposal	·
9	10/22/09	Patent Process, Ethical and Legal Issues		· Ch11: Ethical and Legal Issues (213-234)
10	10/29/09	–	· Test 2: Engineering Ethics Assignment
11	11/05/09	–	· CPE495 Prototype Demo and documentation; (if applicable) Debugged PCB
12	11/12/09		· Test 3: Patent Assignment
13	11/19/09	Preliminary Design Review G1: 18:00 – 18:20/ G2: 18:20 – 18:40 G3: 18:40 – 19:00/ G4: 19:00 – 19:20 G5: 19:20 – 19:40/ G6: 19:40 – 20:00 G7: 20:00 – 20:20/ G8: 20:20 – 20:40 G9: 20:40 – 21:00	· Project Presentation & Demonstration
-	11/26/09	Thanksgiving
14	12/03/09	Project documentation submission	· Complete project documentation and binder due