Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Niklaus Wirth, ETH Zürich

This textbook provides a thorough and systematic introduction to designing digital circuits. The author, an eminent software designer, closes the gap between hardware and software design. The exercises include lab work culminating in the design of a simple yet complete computer.

1. Transistors and Gates.- 1.1. Gates with Bipolar Transistors.- 1.2. Gates with Field Effect Transistors.- 1.3. Electrical Characteristics of Gates.- 2. Combinational Circuits.- 2.1. Boolean Algebra.- 2.2. Graphical Notations.- 2.3. Circuit Simplification.- 2.4. The Decoder or Demultiplexer.- 2.5. The Multiplexer.- 2.6. The Adder.- 2.7. The Adder with Fast Carry Generation.- 2.8. The Multiplier.- 2.9. The Read-Only Memory (ROM).- 2.10. The Combinational PLD.- 2.11. The Programmable Gate Array.- 2.12. Dynamic Behaviour of Combinational Circuits.- 3. Latches and Registers.- 3.1. The SR-Latch.- 3.2. The D-Latch.- 3.3. The D-Register.- 3.4. The JK Register.- 4. Synchronous, Sequential Circuits.- 4.1. The State Machine.- 4.2. The Shift Register.- 4.3. The Synchronous Binary Counter.- 4.4. A Design Methodology for State Machines.- 4.5. The PLD and the FPGA with Registers.- 4.6. Timing and Practical Considerations.- 5. Bus Systems.- 5.1. The Concept of a Bus.- 5.2. The Open-Collector Circuit.- 5.3. The Tri-state Gate.- 6. Memories.- 6.1. Static Memories.- 6.2. Dynamic Memories.- 6.3. Dual-Port Memories.- 7. Formal Description of Synchronous Circuits.- 7.1. Motivation.- 7.2. Lola: A Formal Notation for Synchronous Circuits.- 7.3. Examples of Textual Circuit Descriptions.- 8. Design of an Elementary Computer.- 8.1. The Design of von Neumann.- 8.2. Choice of a Specific Architecture.- 8.3. The Arithmetic-Logic Unit (ALU).- 8.4. The Control Unit.- 8.5. Phase Control and Instruction Decoding.- 8.6. An Implementation Using Standard Parts.- 8.7. Interrupts.- 9. Multiplication and Division.- 9.1. Multiplication of Natural Numbers.- 9.2. Division of Natural Numbers.- 9.3. Extending the ALU by a Multiplier-Quotient Register.- 10. Design of a Computer Based on a Microprocessor.- 11. Interfaces Between Asynchronous Units.- 11.1. The Handshake Protocol.- 11.2. Processor-Bus Interfaces.- 11.3. Adding an I/O Interface to the Hercules Computer.- 12. Serial Data Transmission.- 12.1. Introduction.- 12.2. Synchronous Transmission.- 12.3. Asynchronous Transmission.- 12.4. A Buffered Transmitter and Receiver.- Appendix 1: Implementations Based on the Programmable Gate Array AT6002.- 1. The Laboratory.- 2. The Structure of the Gate Array.- 3. The FPGA Extension Board.- 4. A Set of Design Examples.- Appendix 2: Syntax of Lola.- Selected Design Exercises.