A balanced HW/SW teaching approach for embedded microprocessors

• Autores: U. Meyer Baese, Guillermo Botella, Encarnación Castillo, Antonio García
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 26, no. Extra 3, 2010, págs. 584-592
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Currently popular textbooks on Embedded Microprocessors are analysed in depth and reveal the inherent weaknesses of these books.For example, while even advanced hardware (HW) concepts are presented, the textbooks fail to provide descriptions about thedevelopment of software (SW) tools that put these microprocessors (uPs) to work. Conversely, we provide an intimate knowledge ofthe close relationship between the uP design and the development tools with two teaching modules based on an architectural descriptionlanguage (ADL). The URISC model (popular since the IJEE paper 20 years ago) and the Educational RISC (ERISC) processmodels are developed in an iterative refinement of the instruction set. For all intermediate steps, development tools (assembler, linker,loader, C compiler) are generated which teach students the basics of embedded processor theory and design procedure. The processorsare debugged using three example programs, synthesized to HDL for ASIC/FPGA designs, and are tested on popular Altera and XilinxUniversity development boards to offer hands-on design experience.