Work In Progress: Future Pedagogical Trends in the Microprocessor Course - The Soft Core Processor

Abstract

The microprocessor course has been a keystone course in electrical and computer engineering curricula for decades now. Historically, commercial off-the-shelf processors such as the Microchip PIC and Motorola 68HC12 have been used in this course. Following the migration from discrete components to programmable logic devices in introductory digital design courses we expect to see a similar, yet more selective, shift to the use of soft core processors in future microprocessor and embedded systems courses. Soft core processors are designed in a hardware description language (HDL) and implemented on a programmable logic device, typically a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), and can be customized with respect to system requirements. Off-the-shelf processors cannot offer a customized computer system or the ability to design user-specified hardware as part of a system-on-a-chip. These aspects are the most advantageous characteristics of the soft core approach to embedded systems. Students themselves will design their platform using only the necessary peripherals. They will analyze system performance based on hardware and software tradeoffs against a backdrop of the utilization of hardware resources, thus vastly increasing the design space they consider for their projects. In this paper we support our claim by reviewing recent pedagogical trends and advances in the digital design industry.