Experiment design for teaching digital logic and computer organization principle

Abstract

This paper presents the experiment program which requires the students to incorporate the knowledge learned from both digital logic and computer organization courses to develop a multi-cycle MIPS CPU with FPGA. First, it introduces how to incorporate the knowledge of these two courses by conducting the experiments on the same FPGA platform. Then, it discusses how to teach the students to design a multi-cycle MIPS CPU which supports interruption han- dling. Later, it presents an analogous teaching approach which compares the FPGA development to the C program- ming to help the students master the intricate FPGA devel- opment process in an easy-to-understand way. This exper- iment program targets to help the students build the sys- tematic thinking way as well as cultivate them to develop a complicate computer system by integrating the knowledge of different courses. The experimental program has been carried out in the Internet-of-Things speciality for 6 years, and the survey results showed this experiment program had achieved the desired teaching objective effectively.