Embedded system design

Summary

Hardware-software co-design is a well known concept in embedded system design.It is also a concept required in designing FPGA-accelerators in data-centers.This course teaches how to transform algorithms in smart hardware-software solutions.

Content

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

Recommended courses

• Architecture-aware programming
• CS-200 Computer Architecture or CS-208 Computer Architecture I and CS-209 Computer Architecture II

Important concepts to start the course

• C/C++ programming skills

• Verilog/VHDL description skills

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

• Design buffers to account for different read and write behaviors
• Understand the concept of FSM-D's and use this concept to design accelerators
• Understand the concept of stream processing and be able to implement a stream processor
• Design and optimize an embedded system on FPGA given a set of prerequisites

Teaching methods

• First 9 weeks : theory with small projects and reports
• Last 5 weeks : mini project in groups of 2 students with final demonstration and presentation

Expected student activities

• Perform in groups of two students small projects to put the theory into practice
• Optimize a real world problem in a final project, explain the choices made, and present the results

Assessment methods

• Lab reports : 50%
• Final mini-project : 50%

Supervision

Resources

Moodle Link

• https://go.epfl.ch/CS-476