Designing an Introductory FPGA-Based Embedded System Laboratory

Abstract

In this paper, we present a series of experiments useful in designing an Embedded System Laboratory. The experiments are built around the Spartan3 XC3S400 manufactured by Xilinx. The necessary code is written in the Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL). Integrated Simulation Environment (ISE) Version 9.1i suite is used for software development which is one of the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tool offered by the Xilinx Company. It gives a good beginning for students who want to work on Spartan 3 XC3S400.