Undergraduate Laboratory Development for Computer Architecture and Real-Time Embedded Systems

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To project its computer engineering education program for the needs in the 21st century, the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) department is developing a curriculum enhancement plan. The plan calls for an emphasis on system design and integration methodologies that include the use of computer-aided design (CAD) tools, hardware prototyping with field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), and hardware/software co-design. In the center of the plan, an undergraduate computer hardware design and real-time embedded systems laboratory is established. The new laboratory consists of PC workstations for hardware design and implementation, as well as for embedded system development. Included also are CAD tools, FPGA rapid-prototyping systems, test instruments, and other necessary laboratory instruments. An existing undergraduate computer architecture course can be restructured to take advantage of the new laboratory. Laboratory projects, based on FPGA devices and PCs PCI bus platform, enable students to gain hands-on experience in designing key architecture components. A new course on real-time embedded system design can be added into the curriculum. Using the laboratory facilities, the students can revise a real-time kernel, implement real-time servers and device drivers, and design embedded systems for data acquisition and I/O control. This new laboratory and curriculum improvement plan can be vital to the computer engineering program of the CISE Department which had no existing hardware design facility. The department is firmly committed to strengthen the hardware development and hardware/software co-design components and to continually incorporate leading technology into its curriculum. All Computer Engineering students can use the laboratory effectively, learn practical design approaches, and thus be well prepared to undertake system design tasks in the coming century.