ELEC4602 Chap.6 Design Task, Verification and Reporting
Design Task, Verification and Reporting
The Week 6 flexibility period is assigned to the design task, and the official rubric reveals how the work is judged. Understanding means explaining the chosen architecture, operation, implementation and limitations. Implementation means producing a functional design using clear schematic conventions. Technical performance means relating measured behaviour to the requirements.
Verification means using appropriate tests for the important metrics, including deterministic and statistical evidence where suitable. Documentation means making the reasoning, figures and results legible and complete. Treat those categories as a design workflow rather than five headings added after the circuit is finished.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Requirements translated into tests
- 02
Architecture choice and limitations
- 03
Implementation using standard conventions
- 04
Performance compared with specifications
- 05
Deterministic and statistical verification
- 06
Legible technical documentation
Worked example · free
Turn a requirement into a verification plan
- +1Rewrite the requirement as an observable metric with a clear pass condition, rather than a general claim that the circuit works.
- +1Choose a nominal test that demonstrates the intended mechanism and record the stimulus, model and measurement boundary.
- +1Add tests that expose variation, limiting cases or statistical behaviour where those effects matter to the requirement.
- +1Present the result against the specification and explain any margin, limitation or failure without hiding it in an unreadable figure.
Key terms
- Requirement
- A requirement states a behaviour or limit that the implemented design must satisfy and verification must test.
- Architecture
- An architecture is the selected high-level arrangement of circuit functions used to meet the requirements.
- Figure of merit
- A figure of merit combines selected performance quantities for a defined comparison and must be calculated consistently.
- Verification plan
- A verification plan maps each important requirement to a test, condition, measurement and pass decision.
- Deterministic test
- A deterministic test evaluates a defined stimulus and condition whose result should be reproducible.
- Statistical verification
- Statistical verification examines behaviour across a distribution of variation rather than a single nominal case.
Design Task, Verification and Reporting FAQ
What does the design rubric reward?
It rewards five connected outcomes: understanding of the design, correct implementation, technical performance, verification and documentation. The strongest work explains the architecture and its limits, implements it clearly, measures the important behaviours, tests the relevant conditions and communicates the evidence in a concise, legible report.
Is one nominal simulation enough for verification?
Only if the requirement itself concerns that one defined condition, which is unusual for a complete design. The rubric explicitly values tests of key parameters and, where appropriate, deterministic and statistical properties. Choose tests from the requirements and expose the conditions that could make the design fail.
How can I make a technical report easier to mark?
Give every figure one job. State the requirement or question before the figure, make axes and signals readable, identify the tested condition, then write the conclusion immediately after it. Keep architecture, implementation, performance and verification linked so the marker does not have to infer why a plot matters.
Exam move
Use the official rubric as a live checklist from the beginning of the task. Under understanding, write the operating idea, architecture choice and known limitation. Under implementation, keep the schematic and layout readable and label important global and local nets. Under performance, list the specification beside the measurement that will represent it.
Under verification, define nominal, limiting and statistical tests only where they address a real risk. Under documentation, decide what each figure proves and remove any plot that does not support a conclusion. Before submission, perform a traceability pass: every important requirement should point to an implementation decision, a test result and a written verdict.
Perform a second readability pass at the final page scale so labels and measurements remain legible. Finally, identify one design compromise and explain why it was accepted. That final judgement demonstrates understanding more convincingly than an unsupported claim that the design is optimal. Build the report around an evidence ledger with columns for requirement, mechanism, implementation, stimulus, measurement and verdict.
Any blank cell reveals either an unsupported claim or an unnecessary result. Keep nominal, limiting and statistical evidence separate; if a standard deviation σ is reported, define the varied population, condition and units before interpreting it. Audit each figure at its final scale and make the caption state what was tested and concluded.
Close with a limitation that identifies the next credible failure test instead of claiming universal robustness from one favourable simulation.
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