The objective of this course is to acquire proficiency with Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)s for the purpose of creating prototypes or products for a variety of applications. Although FPGA design can be a complex topic, we will introduce it so that, with a little bit of effort, the basic concepts will be easily learned, while also providing a challenge for the more experienced designer. We will explore complexities, capabilities and trends of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLD). Conception, design, implementation, and debugging skills will be practiced. We will learn specifics around embedded IP and processor cores, including tradeoffs between implementing versus acquiring IP. Projects will involve the latest software and FPGA development tools and hardware platforms to help develop a broad perspective of the capabilities of various Programmable SoC solutions. Topics include: Verilog, VHDL, and RTL design for FPGA and CPLD architectures FPGA development tools flow: specify, synthesize, simulate, compile, program and debug Configurable embedded processors and embedded software Use of soft-core and hard-core processors and OS options FPGA System engineering, software-hardware integration, and testing IP development and incorporating 3rd-party IP The capstone course will give the learner the opportunity to practice and implement the concepts covered by building FPGA systems based on low cost evaluation boards.
This is an extremely good course and I learned a lot. Thank you very much sir "Timothy Scherr " and all the people who make this a such a nice one. Also thank you very much "COURSERA" !!!
Good reading materials. The videos are concise. However, it could improve the code programming assignments to be more explicit.
I was hoping to get more lecture material on writing testbench code.
In general a good course structure and content. It lacks support on question and exercises.
awesome course, hope there would more courses similar to it and if possible it would be great if you provide a step-by-step VHDL programming course
I think this is a good start in learning how to write VHDL and Verilog.\n\nI would like to see a next level course or recommendations for further writing code.
Well prepared lessons(videos). Concise and complete.
It is a great course to learn everything about FPGA, VHDL and Verilog.
Really great course. I highly recommend as Timothy Scherr really makes FPGAs understandable and you really do get to understand how things tick under the hood.
The Verilog course was very good.However the vhdl course could have been better.Needed a bit more clarity on the assignments.The lectures could have used a bit more explanation.
t​he course is structured properly as practical demo has been given with theoretical concepts.
Requires knowledge of FPGA design flow (make sure to take 3 courses before this one), great practical tasks that complete the whole specialization.
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Instructor is good, most of the material is appropriate for an introductory course, but there were a few things that I think could be improved/changed:
1. A much better description of the examples used in weeks 2 and 4 could have been provided. The instructor jumps into the multiplier/ALU and processor right away without any explanation of what they do and how they are architectured. A written document describing what they are would help.
2. The Quartus Prime tutorials given during week 2 are good, but the use of TimeQuest is overly complicated and little description is given on what each tool item covered is for.
3. The material covered in week 3 is very repetitive and could easily be learned by the students just by looking at datasheets. Explaining that there are a wide variety of FPGAs, and what the potential differences are is important, but in my opinion way too much time was used to cover this. I would use the time to cover Quartus Prime in more detail.
4. Some material is missing. For example, during the lecture on how to program the FPGA, there is reference to an LED programing code, which is missing from the course files.
5. At the beginning of the course, it is recommended to purchase DE10-Lite board if the students are interested in taking the "specialization", but the remaining 2 courses are still not up yet into coursera, and there is no info if they will ever be.
The course is very very introductory and can only make you a little familiarize to FPGA/CPLD types and basics of programming FPGA... you will not be even upgraded to beginner, by taking this course.
Coursea charges $99 for a course that you could get the knowledge just by reading materials you could find by a simple search on google.
highly NOT recommended.
This is largely a survey of the Altera/Intel tools and of vendors' CPLD and FPGA offerings. The "build a design" part of the course is rote learning, not foundation knowledge. You do not write Verilog or VHDL in this course. It's unclear what the "for embedded systems" part of the course title means.
I was very excited to take this course. Unfortunately, the materials that are said to be available are nowhere to be found. Many students having this problem. (Week 2 - Video 4).
I really enjoyed this course. The instructor is by far the best I have encountered on any on-line (or classroom) course. I'm now waiting for the rest of the specialisation.
Ancient course with material that is almost a decade old in a field that is rapidly changing.
The cited sources have no clickable links and it is exhausting to manually type in the URLS by hand to read the articles that are exhausting to read anyways. I pay a university to efficiently spoon feed me information in a topic that is otherwise difficult to broach alone, yet I find myself spoonfeeding the shortcomings of this course. I find I am meticulously piecing together viable interpretations of information that should otherwise be given to me in a competent and organized fashion. Too much focus in 'streamlining' the course material, not enough focus on providing it.
Regrettably, this course also does not acknowledge the existence of useful opensource fpga tools for this course like Logsim or open source hardware like icebreaker bitsy. Instead they opt for having you 'hand draw' messy logic circuits and use kludgy, locked-down intel ecosystems with unknown software and possibly unsafe internals. FPGA is a hard topic and this is not the place to learn it.
Overall a good introductory course for absolute beginners to FPGAs.
* What you will learn:
- a basic understanding of programmable logic devices
- an overview of the main design steps
- a list of criteria for hardware selection
- how to perform the most common tasks with Intel/Altera Quartus Prime Lite software
* What you will NOT learn:
- HDL (Verilog or VHDL): most design entries are done with gates or schematics
- to design anything more than a "Hello World"/"LED Blink" application
* What is good:
- accessible with minimal to no software/hardware/prior knowledge requirements
- pace and assignments difficulty are appropriate
* What could be improved:
- community moderation and animation: a LOT of cheating appears in the peer reviews and forum discussions are non existent
- switch the repetitive hardware review (week 3) to real life applications and how to select the appropriate hardware for them
- more time explaining WHY some actions/settings are done in Quartus Prime Lite
I'm just auditing the course.
Even though I really like it, as a beginner I see a lot of material that is just covered lightly. I guess that's OK since there are still more courses in the specialization to cover more subjects.
Anyway, the reason I'm giving it only 2 stars is because I find it expensive. $100 per course is more than what I'd want to pay. If it was less expensive, I'd take the specialization.
This course is just a very slow paced and boring tutorial on Quartus Prime. Every lesson is simply a sequence of button to be pressed in Quartus, with no real explanation on why things are done and no room for thinking. Quiz questions are very bad written and show lack of interest in this course. Peer reviewed assignments are a waste of time and mainly consist of screenshots of Quartus reports. If you know digital design already, there is nothing to learn here. Equally, if you don't know it, this won't help you. Not recommented at all, in particular if you hope to learn something about FPGAs.
Very challenging course with tough assignments and quizes to pass with deadlines but i enjoyed this.
I got practical experience in designing, compiling and analyzing FPGA circuits.
I didn't like this course. Most of the course I was supposed to copy operations which were done by the instructor in the video.Because I didn't understand overal goal of the operations, I took me super long to do. For most of the thime I didn't understand most of instructor's goals and reasons. This way I didn't learn anything except how to install the application. As a teacher myself I would not recommend this course to anyone who doesn't know the material already.
Resource files not updated or checked to coincide with videos. Videos does not always prompt you when to take screenshots in week 4 until peer assessment section.
This is an extremely good course and I learned a lot. Thank you very much sir "Timothy Scherr " and all the people who make this a such a nice one. Also thank you very much "COURSERA" !!!
Very good course, focused on the quartus prime tool and touch a lot of topics on FPGA design, optimization, time analysis and a little of comparison between Altera and other FPGA vendors.
This course is very basic level and I encourage all the electronics students must take this course. Thank you Timothy Scherr Sir, he explained all the concepts with detailed explanation.
Simply awsesome, i was unaware of what actually is fpga designing or what days an fpga designer do, now I know the basics of it and am happy to learn, Thanks coursera
A large amount of information is packed into this short course. If you need someone to guide you through the basics of FPGA design, I highly recommend it to you.
Must take course to master the FPGA EDA Tools skills. Excellent examples,with great elaboration. Thank you so much coursera for such a nice course.
The course was exceptional with very structured and organized way of delivering content to the students. A must do course for all FPGA beginner's.