Teacher

prof.  Pierpaolo PALESTRI

Credits

6 CFU

Language

Italian

Objectives

The purpose of the course is to illustrate the working principles, the main design criteria, the performance and limitations of logical gates and digital circuits with particular attention to gates realized in MOS technology.

Acquired skills

- Understanding of the language and the parameters that describe digital circuits.
- Identifying the most suitable design style for logic gates or library cells starting from appropriate design specifications.
- Analyze the properties of digital circuits and logic families for the processing of digital signals.
- Design simple gates in different using different technologies and/or design styles.
- Using CAD tools for the analysis and design of electronic circuits for digital applications.

Lectures and exercises (topics and specific content)

Main features and performance of digital circuits: analog and digital signals, switch logics, figures of merit relative to static and dynamic characterstics and power (6 hours).
The MOS Transistor: physical working principle of theMOSFET; mathematical models for large and small signal operation in the linear, saturation and subthreshold region; models for circuital simulation (10 hours).
Static  MOS and CMOS logics: ratioed logics, fully CMOS logics, pseudo nMOS, pass transistors and np-CMOS logics (20 hours).
CMOS Dynamic Logics:  general characteristics, the issues of charge sharing and leakage; precharged logics, Domino and np-CMOS (8 hours).
Power Consumption in Digital Circuits: Static Power, Dynamic and Short-Circuit Power; Power Consumption due to Glitching (6 hours).
Exercises: commented solution of exam tests (10 hours).
Labs (10 hours)

References

- J. M. Rabaey, Digital Integrated Circuits: a design perspective , Prentice Hall
- E. Franchi, L. Selmi, Esercizi d'esame di Elettronica digitale, Patron
- D. Esseni, Fondamenti di Circuiti Digitali Integrati CMOS, SGEditoriali, Padova 2006

Type of exam

Written and oral