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Dr. Linden McClure
Professor Adjunct

University of Colorado
425 UCB, ECEE 1B55
Boulder, CO 80309-0425

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ECEN 5613 EMBEDDED SYSTEM DESIGN

ECEN 5613 is a 3 credit hour course and is the first course in CU's Professional Certificate in Embedded Systems.
ECEN 5613 will be offered through the ECEE department during the Fall 2020 semester on Monday evenings from 6:30-9:00pm in the CU Boulder Engineering Center.

Currently, CU Boulder leadership is determining many parameters for Fall 2020 semester operation. We expect a highly flexible academic model that provides options for faculty to deliver courses in a variety of modalities, and a COVID-ready campus experience. Please stay tuned for updates regarding the fall semester.

Note: Due to building construction work in the ECEE Department, live lecture on August 24 during the first week of the semester will be done by Zoom video remote attendance only. In this class, the fundamentals of embedded system hardware and firmware design will be explored, including:
  • Processor selection
  • Power delivery, decoupling
  • Clocks and resets
  • Assembly programming
  • Embedded C programming
  • Incremental development (HW, SW)
  • Test equipment / instrumentation
    (oscopes, multimeters, logic analyzers)
  • Debugging techniques
  • Data sheets
  • Bus cycles, transaction types, timing
    diagrams, timing analysis
  • Memory maps, chip select logic
  • Serial interfaces (RS-232, I2C, SPI)
  • I/O port pin driver circuits
  • In-circuit programming
  • Device drivers
  • Interrupts and ISR's
  • Memory mapped I/O
  • Data conversion (DAC's, ADC's)
  • Design reviews
  • Design trade-offs
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Passive components
Each student in the course will develop their own embedded system hardware and firmware and learn important system integration and debugging skills. This course provides students with skills and experience necessary to pursue any type of embedded systems career.

Processor Information

The focus of ECEN 5613 Embedded System design is on learning the fundamentals of hardware and firmware development, and not on learning any particular processor. Students in Embedded System Design will be using multiple processors, including the Siemens C501, Atmel AT89C51RC2, and TI MSP432 (ARM Cortex-M4F).

Students are encouraged to read the various course documents below prior to starting the class. The following documents are also available from Infineon Technologies.
To supplement the Siemens documents listed above, the following Philips ( NXP ) documents may be useful. They contain the same basic information, but include additional details not found in the Siemens documents.
During the semester, students will upgrade their processor to the Atmel AT89C51RC2. Datasheets, errata, application notes, and software tools are available at the Atmel web site. Students will also be using the TI MPSP432 (ARM Cortex-M4F) processor and development board, in parallel with the 8051 processors above. Datasheets, errata, application notes, and software tools are available at the TI web site.

Lab #1

Software Used for Lab #1 and #2:

The following documents will be useful for HW #2 and Lab #1:

Other Related Materials:

Lab #2

The following documents will be useful for HW #3 and Lab #2:
Other Related Materials:

Lab #3

Software Used for Lab #3 and #4: Course Notes and Usage Notes: The following documents will be useful for HW #7 and Lab #3.

Lab #4

The following documents will be useful for HW #9, HW #10 and Lab #4. Other Related Materials:

Final Project

Homework Assignments

Homework for Labs #1 and #2 (Homework #1-#5): Homework for Labs #3 and #4 and beyond (Homework #6-#13):

Useful links

CU Specific: Electronic Parts: Reference: Copyright 2020. Links on these pages to non-university sites do not represent endorsement by the University of Colorado at Boulder or its affiliates.
Keep watching this space! This web site will be updated throughout the semester.
Last Update: 10-Jul-2020
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