EE209 - Spring 2018 Foundations of Digital System Design

Supplemental Logic Design Lecture videos

Links to Prof. Redekopps's online logic design course lectures

Practice Exams

Exam 1

• Don't Make These Mistakes - Student mistakes from previous exams...No solutions (try them and compare with friends).
• Sample Midterm
• Sample Midterm Solutions

Exam 2

• Sample Midterm
• Sample Midterm Solutions

Exam Solutions

• MT1 Solutions

Xilinx Setup

Using Xilinx on the Viterbi Virtual Desktop (VDI) System

As an engineering student enrolled in this EE course, we will give you access to the Viterbi Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) system which allows you to open a remote desktop/virtual machine with all the engineering software preloaded. You will need to follow these directions to first install the VDI client and connect. Once connected you can find Xilinx ISE Design Suite 14.7 icon on the desktop or search for it in the programs menu. Remember your files only persist in your Documents folder and are lost after each semester.

Install Modelsim Webpack on your Windows PC

Follow these directions

• For those running Windows 8 or 10 you might try this link or this other link for tips on getting the installation to work on your OS.

Run Xilinx on the Viterbi IT Virtual Desktop Interface.

You can use an Mac or Windows client PC and VMWare's Horizon Client software to connect to a virtual (remote) desktop system where you can run the Xilinx software. Follow the directions linked below.

• Directions for installing VMWare's Horizon Client and connecting to the remote desktop servers
• Notes:
  • Sometimes you have to connect twice (or enter your login info twice).
  • You should save your work in the U: drive which will persist from session to session for the length of the semester. Any work saved in any other area will usually be deleted nightly.
  • Let us know if you encounter errors by posting on Piazza.
    

Xilinx Introductory Tutorial Videos

Please watch the following video to learn the basics of using the Xilinx tools. The video is indexed into sections for your convenience. Simply press the menu button (3 lines) at the bottom right of the viewer once it has started.

1. Basic Design Entry & Simulation

Xilinx Intermediate Tutorial Videos

Please watch the following video(s) to learn intermediate skills using the Xilinx tools:

1. Hierarchical Design Entry

Digilent Adept Software Installation

The Digilent Adept software is used to download the HW configuration files produced by Xilinx onto our Nexys-2 boards so we can see our design run. Follow the link below and install the software:

1. Adept for Windows
2. Adept for Linux

Cadence Virtuoso Setup

Cadence is a major technology company in the electronic design automation (EDA) industry. Its Virtuoso tool is an industry standard tool that we will teach you a bit about. Please go through the following documents to get the software setup. It only runs on USC's UNIX servers so you'll need to setup your account. You can use your USC username and email to login to the UNIX servers but will need some kind of remote access software PuTTY, VNC, X-Win Server, etc. Go through the following documents. If you have any problems, just post on Piazza.

1. USC Unix Account Setup
2. USC Virtuoso Tutorial
   • cshrc login script
   • tsmc.spice technology-specific file
   • vlsi_tools.csh

Using VNC to Remote-Desktop to aludra

The Cadence tools are accessible only on USC's UNIX servers (student server is aludra.usc.edu). While you can use tools like X11 or X-Win to remote desktop to aludra, VNC is a thin remote-desktop client that is very fast and requires minimal network bandwidth.

To install and use VNC, follow these instructions - Note: To login to aludra to just start VNC, you need not use X-Win but can use PuTTy on Windows machines and Terminal/ssh on Mac.