Program Overview

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Introduction to Digital Design and Integrated Circuits

The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at UC Berkeley offers a course in Introduction to Digital Design and Integrated Circuits, denoted as EECS 251A.

Catalog Description

This course provides an introduction to digital circuit and system design, focusing on the principles, components, and methodologies for large-scale digital system design. The underlying CMOS devices and manufacturing technologies are introduced, but quickly abstracted to higher levels to focus on the design of larger digital modules for both FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) and ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits).

Course Objectives

The course objectives include:

• Introduction to the Verilog hardware description language
• Basic digital system design concepts
• Boolean operations/combinational logic
• Sequential elements and finite-state-machines
• Design of larger building blocks such as arithmetic units, interconnection networks, input/output units, as well as memory design (SRAM, Caches, FIFOs) and integration
• Parallelism, pipelining, and other micro-architectural optimizations
• Physical design issues visible at the architecture level, such as interconnects, power, and reliability

Student Learning Outcomes

Although the syllabus is the same as EECS 151, the assignments and exams for EECS 251A will have harder problems that test deeper understanding expected from a graduate-level course.

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for this course are:

• EECS 16A and EECS 16B
• COMPSCI 61C
• Recommended: EL ENG 105 Students must enroll concurrently in at least one of the laboratory flavors EECS 251LA or EECS 251LB.

Credit Restrictions

Students must enroll concurrently in at least one of the laboratory flavors Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 251LA or Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 251LB. Students wishing to take a second laboratory flavor next term can sign-up only for that laboratory section and receive a letter grade. The prerequisite for “Lab-only” enrollment that term will be Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 251A from previous terms.

Formats

The course formats are:

• Spring: 3.0 hours of lecture and 1.0 hours of discussion per week
• Fall: 3.0 hours of lecture and 1.0 hours of discussion per week

Grading Basis

The grading basis for this course is a letter grade.

Final Exam Status

There is a written final exam conducted during the scheduled final exam period.

Class Schedule

The class schedules for Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 are provided, along with the instructors' names and classroom locations.

Class Notes

Additional class notes are provided, including information on enrollment, lab requirements, and waitlisting procedures.