FIRST INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS: EE 271 - DIGITAL SYSTEMS. Marek Perkowski

Tutorials: When: FAB 150. Fridays 4 p.m. - 5 p.m.

Grading Policy for the ECE 271 class.

The final grade for the "lecture and homeworks part" of the class will be based on the following:
Quizz and solving problems in class. 10%,
Homeworks - 20%,
Midterm 1 - 20%,
Midterm 2 - 20%,
Final exam - 30%.
Lab is graded separately and included to the final grade. The lab is 30% of the final class grade. So the percentages above are only of the 70% of total final grade for class.

I do not grade on curve,
if everybody will do fine in the class, everybody will get an A.
The dates of quizzes will be NOT announced - try to be always ready for a quizz. Dates of midterms and
the final will be announced at least two weeks in advance.
All quizzes and exams are "open book", you can bring and use whatever books and notes you want.
Please make sure that you understand this grading policy, and you will have no complaints at the end of the quarter.

Homeworks.
will be assigned always on Mondays and collected on subsequent Mondays.
Homeworks will be graded and returned on Wednesdas, before the next homework is due.
No late homeworks are accepted.
Most problems on quizzes, midterms, homeworks and final will be taken from Wakerly's book.
The additional problems that I will discuss in the class will be not included in any
kind of testing. They will be given just to give you overview of current industrial developments.
The topics of each midterm and the final will be announced in advance.

Please come always on time, try not to be late in class because this disturbs other students.

Feel free to ask any questions in class. You can interrupt my lecture at any time to ask a related question.
You can also just ask: "please repeat, I do not understand".
If I speak to fast, slow me down.

You can also write questions and put them on my desk before the class.
If you feel that exams or my grading ways are not fair, please complain and I will try
to change your grade (if I have done a mistake), or explain you better my grading policies.
For instance, some students complained in the past that if the answers were wrong,
"some students get partial credits, some others get 0".
My policy is to give partial credit for a good idea but in case a mistake was done in calculations. If the method selected by the student
is wrong and the student shows no understanding of principles, he gets a 0 for this problem.
If you have questions, please come to see me.

Please, give me anonymous feedback early what
you like and what you do not in this class, so that I will be able
to correct my way of teaching as quickly as possible.
Write what you like most and least about this class.
And, how I can modify the class so you will be able to learn more.

My 43 years of of teaching this class at 6 universities in 5 countries taught me that
that most important is when the students learn how to solve practical problems on their own.
Therefore the emphasis will be on problem-solving rather than memorizing from the books.
Try to solve as many problems from the books as you can. Some of them will be in exams,
and in any case there is no better way to learn this subject than by solving problems.

The objective of this course is to teach you about
sequential logic and introduction to microcomputers and computer architecture.
However, my approach is to teach fundamentals in more detail to give you background for self-study of more advanced topics. If possible, we will cover both synchronous and asynchronous circuits. The asynchronous material is traditionally treated by students as difficult, so spend more time on it.
Since, it is in my opinion more important that you will really understand how the sequential circuit works than to cover all material, we will concentrate on fundamental problems.

You cannot obtain a passing grade in this class if you do not practically
understand multiplexers, counters, shifters, registers, state machines, ALUs, register-transfers, and data path design.
Verbal knowledge is not sufficient in this class. You must demonstrate the understanding of the concepts and their practical utilization in problems and projects.
Project that is not completed and does not work is of very little value.
This approach will require that you do first a review of EE 171 logic design.

Good Luck.