A Digital Logic Design Laboratory for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Undergraduates

An important part of the undergraduate curriculum for both electrical engineering and computer science students is coverage of digital logic design. Typically, this is accomplished by both a lecture and lab course. The purpose of the lab course is to have the students develop practical design skills. Traditional digital logic design courses focus on logic gates. However, most contemporary practical industry designs use programmable logic devices. At the University of Tulsa, our digital design laboratory course starts with traditional logic gate design, then gradually incorporates programmable logic devices, up to the point where students are building practical logic circuits. The laboratory course is scheduled for a three-hour time slot. However, since the projects typically take more than three hours to complete, students are expected to perform the majority of their work outside of class. The course web site contains the project schedule and links to information for each lab. At the start of each class, the instructor discusses the current project assignment, and then the instructors and teaching assistants are available for the rest of the class period to provide assistance. The instructor and teaching assistants also have scheduled office hours during the week for further assistance on the lab projects. There are ten lab experiments. During the first set of projects, students become familiar with basic digital hardware by constructing simple combinational circuits, and learning troubleshooting skills. Next, students construct a tester board to be used for all subsequent projects. During the second set of projects, students become familiar with hardware description languages and programmable logic devices. Finally, students apply their knowledge to the design of practical circuits such as a scrolling bank sign, digital-to-analog converter, and analogto-digital converter. Because students are constructing complete digital design projects, the digital design lab typically requires more effort than traditional laboratory courses. However, many students comment that they find the lab more useful and enjoyable than other lab courses because they get to construct complete working designs.