Dr. James P. Davis

Teaching

Note that the current semester's courses have their title and course number hyperlinked to web pages.  Courses are organized by academic semester, with the most recent semester in progress at the top of the table.  This is to help keep students looking for material in the semester in which the course is being taught.  The notes and materials, although relevant for historical purposes, may not be of value in subsequent semester offerings, as courses are always in flux.  (And I don't publish homework or test solutions to my web pages anyway; I generally discuss these in class, and oftentimes write specific notes on the exams.)

Note 2/11/04: I have added a link here to access my Design Projects page, where I have consolidated many of the project design specifications into a single-source location.  I have also posted the various Process forms that you need to use when executing a project in one of my classes. 

Note 2/11/04: I have also posted a complete list of Independent Study projects, with the intent of publishing these studies to my web page (as a precursor for getting some ready for refereed publication).  This gives you an idea of the range of idea "foraging" I have been considering as a means to validate student ideas through one-on-one study with me, and to see whether we can "ignite" interest in graduate school or create a research project up underneath one or more of them.  Several of these studies have resulted in full-blown proposals being submitted to funding organizations.  Other collaborations have turned into bona fide Masters or Doctoral thesis topics, which will ultimately result in publications and/or external funding.

Semester Course Course Title
Fall 2004 CSCE 491 Capstone Computer Engineering Design Project
CSCE 612 Hardware Description Languages for VLSI Systems
Summer 2004 CSCE 498 Computer Engineering Design Project - Programmable Logic Implementation of 802.11 MAC Testbed
Spring 2004 CSCE 313 Embedded Systems Laboratory
CSCE 611 High-Level VLSI Systems Design
CSCE 798-1 Independent Study: Algorithmic State Machine Design for Parallel Systolic-based Sorting Algorithms
CSCE 798-2 Independent Study: Power-aware DVS Scheduling in Linux OS
CSCE 498-1 Independent Study: Hardware-Software Co-design Integration via Rational RoseŽ Add-ins
CSCE 498-2 Independent Study: Architecture and Prototyping of Agent-based Online Gaming for the Internet
Fall 2003 CSCE 491 Capstone Computer Engineering Design Project
CSCE 613 Principles of CMOS VLSI Design
CSCE 798 Independent Study: Survey of Parallel VLSI Architectures for the Quicksort Algorithm
Summer 2003 CSCE 498 Independent Study: Performance Comparison Between Von Neumann and Custom Logic Architectures for Implementing Sorting Algorithms
Spring 2003 CSCE 612 Hardware Description Languages for VLSI Systems
CSCE 313 Embedded Systems Laboratory
CSCE 798-1 Independent Study: Architecture for a Hardware-Systems Level Co-Simulation Platform for 802.11 Wireless LAN Study
CSCE 798-2 Independent Study: Modeling Microprocessors at the RTL Level using Algorithmic State Machine (ASM) Method
Fall 2002 CSCE 491 Capstone Computer Engineering Design Project
CSCE 611 High-Level VLSI Systems Design
CSCE 798-1 Independent Study: Architecture of an Abstraction Layer for Seamless Integration of a Custom Computing Machine (CCM) Platform
CSCE 798-2 Independent Study: Adaptive Self-Organizing Wireless Networks
Summer 2002 CSCE 790 Selected Topics: Advanced VLSI Design
Spring 2002 CSCE 491 Capstone Computer Engineering Design Project
CSCE 613 Principles of CMOS VLSI Design
Fall 2000 CSCE 212 Introduction to Computer Architecture

Note 5/29/03:  For courses that I have now taught more than once, I have removed older course material links.  I am updating this material and, in the case of the Fall 2003 courses, we are using different texts.  So, by removing these older links, no one gets confused about where they should be getting the relevant materials for lectures, homework/project assignments, and test hints.  

3/19/03  I have reordered the course listings, by semester, instead of by course number.  This will be easier to find the appropriate listing of materials for a course offering during a given semester.  I may leave access to prior offerings of a given course available, so students and prospective students might know what to expect.  I might pull some specific artifacts--only if having them on the site allows students to "cheat the system". But I expect to evolve the courses each time I offer them, and since I don't post homework or exam solutions to the web anyway, it may not be such a big deal.  

3/19/03 If you are looking at my Courses web page for information on an upcoming course (since I am posting this a week prior to undergraduate advisement), you might check out the materials posted for the class taught in a previous semester (for 491, you'd be better off looking at Fall 2002 rather than Spring 2002)...although I expect both classes to evolve from when I last taught them (new textbooks, tighter focus, etc.) as a result of what was learned from teaching the class, and the feedback I got from students (you know, those green forms you fill out for rating the course *do* get read and I *do* pay attention to what feedback you give me).

3/19/03 I expect to have some information on the Fall courses up as separate pages shortly.  I'm in the process of selecting textbooks for both courses and also rethinking the layout and coverage of material to keep things fresh.  (Plus, you always learn stuff when you teach classes....like watching a movie more than once...you *always* get more out of it the next time around.)

3/19/03 Note: I will *not* be teaching anything this summer and will probably not be able to take on any students for independent study during this time as well.  Sorry about that.  But I need to devote this summer to a number of research projects and I need to write, a lot--much of which I will likely *not* be doing here at USC during a good bit of the summer months.

Note that the current semester's courses have their title and course number hyperlinked to web pages.  Courses already taught have their semester hyperlinked.  This is to help keep students looking for material in the semester in which the course is being taught.  The notes and materials, although relevant for historical purposes, may not be of value in subsequent semester offerings.  (And I don't publish homework or test solutions to my web pages anyway.)