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Johns Hopkins University

Communications and High-Speed Signals with Raspberry Pi

Johns Hopkins University via Coursera

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Overview

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Course two of this specialization is all about hardware physical layer and communication between elements of your project, how to troubleshoot high-speed signals when they don't work, and how to design your projects so they do work. We start with a review of common signal protocols available . Then, to build a deep and intuitive understanding of how circuits send and receive these signals, Module 2 explores the physics of high-frequency signals in an easy-to-follow way. Module 3 flips your thinking from the time-domain to the frequency-domain to examine the frequency components of signals and understand how unintended filtering in your circuits distorts your digital waveforms. These are "signal integrity" concepts, distilled to what you need for your Raspberry Pi projects. Now, with our knowledge of signals, Module 4 develops five rules of thumb for designing your circuits so that your high-speed signals work the first time. These five rules of thumb, combined with the experience from earlier modules, help you estimate spectral bandwidth of signals, rise time, and gain insights whether you're troubleshooting a broken design or designing something new.

Syllabus

  • Communications Protocols
    • In this first module, we will discuss a variety of modern communications protocols and point out features that we will refer back to in later discussions. These are digital signals, but if you think digital communications is all 1's and 0's, I'd like you to change your thinking and start thinking of every signal as an analog waveform. We'll discuss what that means and why it's important when building projects with high-performance communications links. We'll introduce some well-known protocols and also the emergning I3C protocol, the successor to I2C. Lastly, we'll take an in-depth look at a type of circuit called an open-drain driver. This is how an IC communicates on an I2C (and I3C) bus and is a great example circuit for studying all sorts of real-world effects on high-speed signals. We'll use this open-drain configuration as an example throughout the entire course. You may have seen some of this information before but it's worth briefly seeing again as this is the foundation that we'll be referring back to throughout the whole course. And it's worth building a strong foundation now, because Module 4 wraps up everything we've learned into five very useful rules of thumb that you can you in all of your future projects. One more thing. I know I speak slowly, so feel free to use the Coursera video player feature to play the videos at 1.5x or 2x speed.
  • Real-World Signal Impairements
    • In Module two, we look into the physics of how high-speed signals are effected by real-world circuits and how that distortion effects our projects. We'll use math at times, but only to help develop an intuitive understanding. This is a critical part of developing the five Rules of Thumb in module 4. These valuable rules will help you troubleshoot and design circuits with high-speed signals in all sorts of future projects.
  • Designing for High-Speed Signals
    • Everything we've discussed has considered signals to be voltages that change in time. Picturing signals strictly in the time domain is only half the story, so get ready to shift your mind into the frequency domain. This module introduces frequency-domain concepts and how we can use the frequency domain to deeply understand how real-world circuit effects distort signals and can cause communications errors in our projects. At the end of this module is two extra videos on decibels and filter terminology. Feel free to skip them if you're very familiar with the topic, or feel free to watch them out of order if you need a little more background in those topics to understand the ideas here in module 3.
  • Five Rules of Thumb
    • After laying down a strong foundation in modules 1, 2, 3, we've finaly made it to module 4 and it's time to develop our five Rules of Thumb. These concepts were chosen for the rules of thumb in this module becuase they are extremely common trouble spots for new developers (and sometimes experienced developers, too). Each lesson builds on information in the earlier modules and distills a concept to an easy-to-remember rule that you can use on your future projects. Also included in teh resources is a handy one-page PDF summary of the five Rules of Thumb for you keep close by when you're working on your projects in the future.

Taught by

Drew Wilson

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