UCR CS 122B: Advanced Embedded and Real-Time Systems, Winter 2004

CS122B Winter 2003's offering CS122A Fall 2003

Overview

Embedded systems include almost any computing system other than traditional computers. Examples include cell phones, set-top boxes, traffic-light controllers, alarm systems, automotive systems, etc. Embedded systems is one of the fastest growing in computing, and quite exciting. In addition to the catalog subjects below, we'll focus on team skills and effective communication.

Catalog description : CS 122B. Advanced Embedded and Real-Time Systems. (5) Lecture, three hours; laboratory, six hours. Prerequisite(s): CS 122A. Further exploration of state- of-the-art aspects of building embedded systems, including real-time programming, synthesis of coprocessor cores, application-specific processors, hardware and software cosimulation and codesign, low-power design, reconfigurable computing, core-based design, and platform-based methodology.

Basic information

Instructor and office hours : Frank Vahid (vahid@cs.ucr.edu) OH TBA
Office: Surge 328

Teaching Assistant: Greg Stitt (gstitt@cs.ucr.edu)

Lecture : Tue & Thu, 2:10 am - 3:30 pm in OLMH 1136

Labs : Mon & Tue 6:10 pm to 9:00 pm in Surge 173
Lab attendance is mandatory. You are expected to stay in the lab for the entire lab session, working on material related to this course. Part of your lab grade is based on attendance and participation.

Books: Required: The Art of Designing Embedded Systems, J. Ganssle, 1st ed., 1999, Newnes Press, Butterworth-Heinemann.
Optional: Embedded Systems Design, Vahid/Givargis, 1st ed., 2002 J. Wiley and Sons.
Recommended: Learn Java 2 in 21 Days , Laura Lemay and Rogers Cadenhead, Sams; ISBN: 0672320614; 2nd edition (May 21, 2001), or any other Java book with a good applet introduction. Note: online Java sources are also available.

Course grading: The grading will be based on the combination of two components: 40 pts: Lab component 30 pts: excercises, assignments and exams if any
10 pts: attendance, participation, and presentations
60 pts: Lecture component 20 pts: Homeworks/quizzes/in-class-exercises/participation
20 pts: Midterm
20 pts: Final
Letter grades are assigned according to the usual 90/80/70/60 rule: 90% and above correspond to an A, 80% and above to a B, 70% and above to a C, 60% and above to a D, and less than 60% to an F. +/- grades will be given. Curving may be done on individual items only if it helps the class. You are not competing against one another -- you can all earn As (and that has happened in the past), so work together and help each other to succeed.

To ensure minimum competency in both the principles and practice, students must pass each component to pass the course.

Schedule

Subject to change as the quarter progresses

Week 1: Embedded systems impact on the world
- LAB: Mo (Jan 5) Icebreakers, teams, Java resource search, discussion, applet programming
- LCT: Tu (Jan 6): Embedded systems intro and impact. Design complexity (defining the problem is 1/2 the solution) and the need for simulation
  Link: Local respirator company improves quality of life (Click on "Editorials")
- LAB: Tu (Jan 6) More applet programming; Freeway speed measurement
- LCT: Th (Jan 8): More on simulation
  Read ADES ch 1-3 by Tu, short quiz on Tu.
Week 2
- LAB: Mo (Jan 12) Test each others' applets, do code inspections of each others' code, develop coding standard for class, rewrite code according to standard, class checks again. More applets.
- LCT: Tu (Jan 13): CMM, productivity, and software complexity. Link: Sw CMM
  Quiz: Quiz 1 on chpts 1-3
- LAB: Tu (Jan 13) Applet-based air conditioner.
- LCT: Th (Jan 15): Real-time programming with interrupts -- ADES 4. Sw bit handling. Debounce. Homework: Homework 1 on interrupts.
Week 3
- LAB: Mo (Jan 19): Holiday
- LCT: Tu (Jan 20): FPGAs and reconfigurable computing
- LAB: Tu (Jan 20) Real-time programming with interrupts; bit-level manipulation
- LCT: Th (Jan 22): FPGA performance benefits: FIR example (sw vs. hw). The softening of hardware, and SOCs. Article: Vahid article Homework: Homework 2 on FPGAs (Due Thurs).
Week 4
- LAB: Mo (Jan 26): Triscend device: Single-chip microprocessor/FPGA
- LCT: Tu (Jan 27): Performance optimization, Amdahl's Law, Pareto points.
  FYI: gprof information
  FYI: Karp's Turing Award lecture on theoretical computer science
- LAB: Tu (Jan 27) Hw/Sw Partitioning using the Triscend E5
- LCT: Th (Jan 29): Design examples, hw/sw tradeoffs Quiz: Quiz 2 on FPGAs, hw/sw part, perf. opt.
Week 5
- LAB: Mo (Feb 2) Triscend (continued)
- LCT: Tu (Feb 3): Midterm
- LAB: Tu (Feb 3): Performance optimization using gprof and LOOAN. Instruction set simulation, cosimulation, SystemC, h/s partitioning, Mediabench, EEMBC
- LCT: Th (Feb 5): Sensor networks; UCR research on eBlocks. Link: eBlocks
Week 6
- LAB: Mo (Feb 9): eBlocks: hands-on and simulator-based designs. Simulator Code - simulator.zip
- LCT: Tu (Feb 10): Low power design. Article: Mudge's paper
  ITRS'03
  UCR work in low power: cache design (ISCA'03 paper), SmartDust
- LAB: Tu (Feb 10): eBlocks: design example contest, Applet-based eBlock simulator extensions -- due Friday
- LCT: Th (Feb 12): SystemC intro.
  Quiz: Quiz 3 on eBlocks and low pwr Homework: Homework 3 on Beamforming, low-power and sensor networks
Week 7
- LAB: Mo (Feb 16) HOLIDAY
- LCT: Tu (Feb 17): UCR Research: Binary-level partitioning; Warp processors
- LAB: Tu Week 7 (Feb 17) SystemC
- LCT: Th (Feb 19): UCR Research: Medical Ventilator Control System
Week 8
- LAB: Mo (Feb 23) SystemC
- Tu (Feb 24): Firmware/hardware issues -- ADES 5, 6.
  Article: Making the Best of those Extra Transistors
- LAB: Tu (Feb 24) SystemC
- Th (Feb 26): Testing -- ADES 7, 8;
  Homework: Homework 4 on testing
Week 9
- LAB: Mo (Mar 1) SimpleScalar
- LCT: Tu (Mar 2): More on Testing/Debug
  Quiz: Quiz 4 on testing
- LAB: Tu (Mar 2) Testing
- LCT: Th (Mar 4): Safety
Week 10
- LAB: Mo Week 10 (Mar 9) Misc
- LCT: Tu Week 10 (Mar 9): Misc., Review
- LAB: Tu Week 10 (Mar 10) Misc
- LCT: Th Week 10 (Mar 11): Final Exam
(Scheduled Final 03/20/2004 11:30A-2:30P)

Lab Material

General course features and policies

Material covered : Lecture doesn't cover all required material, which also appears in the course books and may be covered only in the lab sessions.
Study groups : Engineering is a social discipline, requiring good people skills. Furthermore, working with others enhances learning. Therefore, we STRONGLY encourage collaborating on the homeworks, and studying together. Although students should not submit identical homeworks, very similar homeworks are O.K. -- under no circumstances will we consider similar homework submissions as cheating -- even if two submissions are identical (though we will deduct points for identical solutions). So work together without fear. Furthermore, we will give 5% extra credit on any homework submission in which you studied with a group of at least two other 122B students for at least one hour -- the student names and the time spent together must be noted on the homework, and all must match. Note: we're trusting that you will be honest about this, and not just write down each other's names to get the extra credit.
Helping others : Helping others enhances one's own learning, and also, well, helps others (remember, you can all get As). Thus, we encourage you to help others in the lab if you have the time. You should not write code for others nor show your code to others. But helping find bugs, and helping to explain concepts, is fine. Students that we have found to be particularly helpful to others may receive a small amount of extra credit lab points, given in the middle of the quarter and at the end of the quarter (but ideally you should not do this just for the extra credit!).
Regrade policy: corrections must be submitted in writing and within one week of the distribution of the graded material. Grade-database errors should also be pointed out within one week of posting.
Academic dishonesty: please don't cheat, O.K.? Copying code for the labs from any source (current students, past students, textbooks, web, etc.) is not allowed unless explicitly authorized. Team-coding (you write function A, I'll write function B) is not allowed unless explicitly authorized. Report cheating anonymously at: https://www.cs.ucr.edu/cheating/.
Success in computer science courses requires time. A typical student needs to spend about 15-18 hours per week on this course (including lecture and lab).
This course is the fourth in an upper-division sequence (with 120A, 120B, 122A preceding); thus, the course is designed for mature students with good study habits. We'll cover a wide variety of subjects in lectures, with students expected to study those subjects extensively outside lecture. You should come to lecture prepared not to just listen, but to think and to participate. It's a lot of work, but you'll learn a lot and hopefully have fun too. Past students have told us that they've gotten jobs specifically because of skills learned in the 122A/122B courses -- so it's worth the effort!

Lab guidelines

Students are required to stay the full three hours of lab session every week. You'll have in-lab exercises, presentations, discussions, and possibly exams. Work ahead or on extra course-related material, and/or help others, if you finish early.
During lab discussion time, students should move away from their computers to the whiteboard.
Prepare for lab before arriving. Bring relevant reference books to lab.
All persons in lab during scheduled lab time must be formally registered in that section. No unregistered people in the lab are allowed.
Do not bring your bike/scooter/etc. into the lab.
Lab presentations : Each day (starting the second week of lab) will include four 5 minute presentations, 2 at 6:50 and 2 at 8:00. Choose a recent article from the Additional Resources link below or another source of embedded systems information. No two people should present the same article. Talks should be almost exactly 5 minutes (questions will be held until afterwards), so plan carefully. The number of presentations per student depends on the number of students we have, but all should give the same number, and you can't give your next presentation until all students have finished their current one. Your talk should justify why you chose that article (why do you think it's interesting?)

Electronic assignment turn-in

Grades

Course email list

CS 122B mailing List ( send mail now or access the archive): Be sure to sign up to receive important announcements, which may be made only through the course email list. You must use your CS or EE account, or else some other UCR account, so be sure to learn how to read those accounts or at least automatically forward messages to your personal email address (just create in your home directory a file named ".forward" containing your personal email address).

Additional Resources

Embedded Systems Programming Magazine

Circuit Cellar Magazine