Microprocessors in undergraduate digital design laboratories

Abstract

The decreasing costs of digital processors coupled with the dramatic increase in their actual and contemplated use in systems design and product engineering make it imperative that electrical engineering students understand the characteristics and capabilities of digital processors as system components. Educating undergraduates to understand the structure and behavior of digital processors as components presents a different set of problems from those encountered in teaching engineers computer programming. This paper outlines the requirements for such education, concluding that the use of LSI microprocessors in the digital laboratory offers the best solution. The choice of laboratory topics to be covered and the selection of equipment are discussed, along with some possible classes of experiments. The relationship between these laboratory courses and the selection of equipment are discussed, along with some possible classes of experiments. The relationship between these laboratory courses and other topics in the EE curriculum is treated briefly. Finally, an appendix is included which lists and briefly discusses the phased acquisition of equipment and implementation of the undergraduate EE digital systems laboratory at the authors' institution.