Computer Hardware Design到底是搞嘛的？

选课太痛苦了。。。

现在还有一门课拿不准，就是这个Computer Hardware Design！

找了半天也没有找到课程描述，本科也完全没有碰过这方面的内容，所以就上来问问看，一般Master的这门课教授哪些内容？
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另一个问题：如果我下学期想学嵌入式系统，那么这学期最好学些什么课程作为先导课程？

本科学光电的，实在是不懂这些，问题很白，请大家指点：）

呃，补充一下，我自己的想法主攻方向还是电路设计（模拟和数字的课都选了）。。。

但是学校规定必须选4门课，所以我也不想在不想干的方向花太多的精力。。。

所以最好是选的课程教授内容互相有交叉的，不知道Computer Hardware Design和数模电有交叉吗？

混乱了混乱了，嗯，总之大家有什么关于Computer Hardware Design方面的想法就麻烦敲一点上来吧，感激不尽

好专业

COURSE DESCRIPTION

EECS 4340 is *practical* course on the art and practice of digital system design. This course will teach you almost everything you need to know to  design and implement a microprocessor.  We will cover a hardware description language (Verilog), commercial synthesis tools and rigorous testing methods. This is not a circuits course per se, but we will discuss some circuit related issues as necessary. 4340 is both an advanced undergraduate course and an introductory graduate course (suitable for EE, CE and CS programs). It is one of the lab electives for the Computer Engineering undergraduate major and will provide a strong background for advanced graduate work in computer architecture, embedded systems, networking and hardware security. The prerequisite for this course is CSEE W 3827: Fundamentals of Computer Systems.
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这是computer hardware design的课程描述


COURSE DESCRIPTION: The course is an advanced course in modern digital design. It provides a strong foundation for cmputer engineering, computer science and electrical engineering courses in digital and embedded systems, computer architecture, parallel systems, networking, etc., and a good background for a variety of industrial positions.

It is suitable as an elective for BS/MS/PhD degrees in computer science and electrical engineering, and for the BS/MS in computer engineering (it is one of two alternative required courses for computer engineering BS students).

The course covers advanced topics, with a special focus on the design, modelling, optimization and simulation of large complex subsystems.  It also intensively covers some of the practical industrial aspects of modern design, including use of hardware description languages (e.g. VHDL) for structured modelling and simulation.  Students will gain hands-on experience in designing and simulating a number of real digital systems using several CAD tools.

TOPICS INCLUDE:   introduction to VHDL (an industry-standard hardware modelling language); designing digital controllers (Mealy and Moore state machines); controller optimization (state assignment, partitioning); iterative circuits. Advanced high-speed and low-power adder design:  conditional sum, carry-skip, carry-select, carry-lookahead, carry-save, parallel prefix [Kogge-Stone, Brent-Kung]; high-speed array multipliers. Introduction to modern design of complex digital subsystems:  register-transfer level (RTL) design.  Large-scale case studies:  designing custom floating point units; the Philips I2C commercial serial bus interface; keyboard interfaces; code conversion. Commercial structured logic blocks:  FPGA internals and micro-architecture. Fault-tolerance, error detection and correction, recent approaches to designing circuits with resilience to "soft (i.e. transient) errors" due to cosmic rays. Introduction to asynchronous (i.e. clockless) digital circuits:  designing clockless controllers and pipeline structures. Metastability and synchronizers; pseudo-random number generators (LFSR's). Recent commercial strategies for power reduction and security;
memory unit design (DRAM/SRAM).

HOMEWORKS, LAB COMPONENT AND PROJECT: The course will include a number of written homeworks, small lab design exercises, as well as a moderate-sized design project.  However, this is not primarily a project class.

PRE-REQUISITES: basics of digital logic, such as CSEE 3827 Fundamentals of Computer Systems or the equivalent introductory course on digital design. In particular, it is assumed that you are already familiar with: Boolean algebra; combinational logic design (Karnaugh maps, basic gates, negative logic, 2-level/sum-of-products and multi-level digital design); combinational building blocks (multiplexers, demultiplexers, decoders); basic adder design; latches, flipflops and registers.
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这是ADVANCED LOGIC DESIGN的课程描述

可以看出这两门课都可以给下学期的embedded systems提供background。
然后据有同学当时问了导师的时候导师也是说两门课教授内容大同小异，不用同时选。
再加上在课程描述中头一门课显然更贴近实际一些，所以我考虑就选hardware design了。

不知道这样的考虑合适否，请大家指教：）

两门功课介绍不是一个档次的，第二个比第一个详细多了。

也许应该选1吧，后面这门功课，如果将来想主攻电子电路设计比较合适，感觉更侧重logic design的细节。