93322 - Hardware-Software Design of Iot Systems M

Academic Year 2025/2026

  • Docente: Luca Benini
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: ING-INF/01
  • Language: English

Learning outcomes

The main goal of the class is to enable students to specify, configure, program and verify complex embedded electronic systems for the Internet of Things and for Artificial Intelligence. The importance of hardware-software interaction will be emphasized, as all practical IoT and AI systems are programmable. The class will provide working knowledge on stateof- the-art hardware platforms used in embedded AI and IoT applications - spanning a wide range of power and cost vs. performance tradeoffs. A detailed coverage will be given of software abstractions and methodologies for developing applications leveraging the capabilities of the above mentioned platforms. Design automation tools and flows will also be covered.

Course contents

1. Introduction to Hardware/Software design and System-on-Chip Architectures.

2. Microcontroller systems design – Hardware and Software

Microcontroller architecture based on the ARM Cortex M family and RISC-V. Microcontroller peripherals. Microcontroller programming for maximum Energy efficiency
Analog and Digital sensor interfaces, MEMS sensors – Smart sensors – Wireless sensor interfacs. System power management

3. Parallel Architecture and Parallel programming for advanced embedded systems

Multicore architectures and their use in energy efficient embedded Systems with examples from consumer and industrial market segments.
Programming shared memory multicore systems using the OpenMP programming model – with practical examples based on open-source multicore RISC-V system (PULP platform)

Readings/Bibliography

  1. Computer Architecture, A Quantitative Approach By John L. Hennessy, David A. Patterson and Christos   Kozyraki Edition 7 (or 6)
  2. Notes and online documentation shared during lectures

Teaching methods

Teaching in class  + lab exercises

Assessment methods

compulsory written exam  ( and optional oral exam)

Teaching tools

Online material shared via Virtuale

Office hours

See the website of Luca Benini

SDGs

Decent work and economic growth Industry, innovation and infrastructure

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.