Some students choose to tackle final projects that take substantially more than 72 hours to complete. In recognition of this extra work, it is possible to register for 6.905, providing an additional 6 units (~78 hours) of credit. Your grade for 6.905 will be the same as your grade for 6.111.

Note that it is not expected that you should register for the extra units. It's quite possible to conceive and execute an excellent final project within the 6.111 time budget -- you can get an "A" without having your final project be bigger and more complicated than ever done in the past. Your grade in 6.111 is not influenced by whether you register for 6.905.

R. H. Katz
Contemporary Logic Design
Prentice Hall (ISBN 0805327037)
August 1993

(new edition expected December 2004)

There are many good Verilog books; we strongly recommend that you have access to one. Several Verilog books are available for in-lab checkout from the Digital Instrument Room (38-601).

D. E. Thomas, P. R. Moorby
The Verilog Hardware Description Language, 5th ed.
Kluwer Academic Publishers (ISBN 1402070896)
June 2002

S. Palnitkar
Verilog HDL, 2nd ed.
Prentice Hall (ISBN 0130449113)
2003

If exceptional circumstances make it impossible to take a quiz at the designated time, please contact the staff before the quiz to see if other arrangements can be made. Requests for make-ups after the quiz has been given are unlikely to be successful.

There is no final exam.

The 6.111 lab is located on the sixth floor of Building 38 (room 38-600). During business hours you can enter via the lab doors from the Building 36 elevator lobby. After business hours the sixth floor entrance is locked and alarmed you need to enter and leave on the fifth floor and take the internal stairs up to the 6.111 lab. The hours of operation are

These times are subject to change; check the signs near the lab entrance and make your plans accordingly. The lab will be staffed by Teaching Assistants (TAs) or Lab Aides (LAs) for some, but not all, of these hours. Check the lab hour schedule for details.

Each student will be issued their own NuBus Laboratory Kit along with a collection of components used in the assignments, a pair scope probes, a logic probe, and some hand tools. While wiring and some debugging can be done at home, most assignments require the use of an oscilloscope, logic analyzer and other special equipment, all of which are available in the lab. Additional equipment and parts may be checked out from the Digital Instrument Room (38-601) from 0900 to 1730 Monday through Friday. During other hours some, but not all, of this equipment is available from the fifth floor Instrument Room (38-501).

Remember to put your name on anything that you build in the laboratory and leave unattended, otherwise it may be gone when you return. There are some lockers for the safe storage of your kits along the 6th floor entry corridor; to get one for the semester apply at the 6th floor instrument room desk.

There are three lab assignments to be completed individually. For each lab you will be asked to turn in a report in addition to completing a checkoff with a TA. Checkoffs and reports are due on Fridays in the 6.111 lab. There is a 20%/day late penalty for work completed 1 to 5 working days after the due date. No credit will be given for unexcused lateness exceeding 5 days.

Note that each lab has multiple, often substantial, tasks you need to complete and it is unlikely that you'll be able to complete the work in one sitting (eg, the day the lab is due). The lab and TAs are very busy just before an assignment is due so please plan accordingly.

6.111 is one of the courses which satisfies the EECS Communication-Intensive (CI-M) third-year class requirement. Even if you have satisfied the requirement in some other way, you will need to prepare a report and its revision as described below.

The writing department will provide feedback on the first version of your Lab 2 report. You are required to submit a revised version which will then be assigned a final grade by the writing department; this grade will contribute 10% to your final grade in 6.111. The 6.111 staff will also evaluate this report for technical merit and assign a grade; this grade will contribute another 10% to your final grade.

The Final Project is the most important assignment -- you'll get to design an implement a small digital system of your own choosing, working with one or at most two partners. The last six weeks of the term are devoted exclusively to working on the project and its accompanying report. We'll be providing lots of information about the project as the term progresses, but here's a quick list of the project milestones:

• choosing your partner(s) (10/25)
• project abstract (11/1)
• project proposal conference (11/5)
• project block diagram conference (11/12)
• project checklist (11/17)
• project design presentations (11/17, 11/19, 11/22)
• project demos and videotaping (12/6, 12/7)
• project report due (12/8)

The labs should be done individually. You are welcome to get help from others but the work you hand in must be your own. Copying another person's work or allowing your work to be copied by others is a serious academic offense and will be treated as such by the course staff.

• Quiz: 10%
• Lab 1: 10%
• Lab 2: 10%
• Lab 2 revised written report (CI-M): 10%
• Lab 3: 20%
• Final project: 40%

We construct a histogram of these summary numbers and proceed to discuss the individual performance of each student. Some of the factors considered are:

• Diligence as measured by the time spent in the lab and attendance at the Project Design Presentations.

• Completion of all the labs. It is extremely rare for a student to receive an "A" without completing Lab 3. Of course, it is possible to get a grade lower than "A" even if Lab 3 is complete.

• Performance on the final project:
  • Students who do not construct a final project or turn in a final report will receive an "F".
  • Project complexity is an important factor is discriminating between an "A" and a "B". An "A" is rarely given if the final project is not at least as complex as Lab 3.

Traditionally, the average performance (and hence grade) has been quite high in 6.111. A large number of students do "A" level work and are, indeed, rewarded with a grade of "A". The corollary to this is that, since average performance levels are so high, punting any part of the subject can lead to a disappointing grade. It's very important to keep up with the work.

Incompletes will not be given.