MIT EECS - 6.111 Spotlight page June-July 2006

What is 6.111? 6.111, Introductory Digital Systems Laboratory, is a popular hands-on undergraduate hardware course that deals with the design of complex digital systems. The course introduces the basics of digital systems to enable students to design and implement complex projects. Students work in groups of two or three to implement a final project of their choice. For many students this is the first time they have tackled such an unstructured project. The students define, architect and implement highly innovative applications. Typical projects include the implementation of games, multimedia (video, audio, and graphics), robotics, and wireless. Instructor In-charge: Professor Anantha Chandrakasan
		The new 6.111 lab kit (pictured above)
2006 Featured 6.111 Projects "Let's Take This Outside" Boxing (view video) Drum Machine (view video) 3D Pong (view video) A Voice Training Karaoke Machine (view video) Have a Safe Flight: Bon Voyage (view video) MIT Dance Dance Revolution (view video) View entire 6.111 projects with videos		The new 6.111 lab kit (pictured above) is based on a state-of-the-art six-million-gate FPGA and includes support for video, audio and several digital interfaces.A noticeable difference of the present 6.111 compared to earlier offerings is the dramatic reduction in number of physical wires required in the implementation of labs and projects. (See the photo below of a typical lab kit in 1998). The FPGA has re-programmable wires as well as logic gates, enabling a virtual bread-boarding platform. Also different is the use of hardware description languages to program the hardware instead of manual hand optimization. 6.111 on MIT Open Course Ware
6.111 History 6.111 has a long history and has evolved over many generations of implementation technologies. Initial offerings of 6.111 were based on discrete integrated circuits with a few logic gates. Today, complex projects are implemented using a Hardware Description Language (HDL) to specify the contents of Field Programmable Logic Arrays (FPGAs). Final Projects from 6.111 in Fall Term, 1993
		A typical 6.111 lab kit (above) from 1998.
Acknowledgements: The lab has received a major upgrade through donations received from Intel (high-performance PCs), Tektronix (state-of-the-art logic analyzers) and Xilinx (high-performance FPGAs).

6.111 Final Projects, Spring, 2006