NMOS and PMOS transistors as switches. Logic gates in CMOS. Extensive introduction to the fabrication technology and cost of integrated circuits (IC). Shape, layout, and stick-diagrams of transistors, wires, and gates. Dynamic logic, pass-transistors, transmission gates, multiplexors, tristate drivers. Sequential circuits, two-phase clocking. Circuits with a regular layout topology: decoders, PLA/ROM, priority encoders, adders, shifters, memory. Datapath, pitch-matching. Semi-custom IC technologies (gate-arrays, standard cells, FPGA). The equation of speed: parasitic capacitance, charge current, delay time. Static and dynamic power consumption. The tradeoff between speed and power consumption. Parasitic capacitance of transistors and wires. Examples of speed and power consumption of popular configurations. Speeding circuits up by precharging. Static and dynamic RAM. Off-chip communication: pads, pad drivers. Power and clock distribution. Putting it all together: capabilities, limitations, and cost of VLSI systems, architectures that are appropriate for exploiting this technology. Specific examples of digital systems and of their VLSI implementation.
The courses of the Computer Science Department are designated with the letters "CS" followed by three decimal digits. The first digit denotes the year of study during which students are expected to enroll in the course; the second digit denotes the area of computer science to which the course belongs.
First Digit
Advised Year of Enrollment
1,2,3,4
First, Second, Third and Fourth year
5,6
Graduate courses
7,8,9
Specialized topics
Second Digit
Computer Science Area
0
Introductory - General
1
Background (Mathematics, Physics)
2
Hardware Systems
3
Networks and Telecommunication
4,5
Software Systems
6
Information Systems
7
Computer Vision and Robotics
8
Algorithms and Theory of Computation
9
Special Projects
The following pages contain tables (one for each course category) summarizing courses offered by the undergraduate studies program of the Computer Science Department at the University of Crete. Courses with code-names beginning with "MATH" or "PHYS" are taught by the Mathematics Department and Physics Department respectively at the University of Crete.