ECE 412 - Microcomputer Laboratory

Summer 2009 | Fall 2009 | Spring 2010 | Summer 2010
Web Page http://courses.ece.uiuc.edu/ece412/
Official Description Design, construction, and use of a small general-purpose computer with a micro-processor CPU; MSI and LSI circuits used extensively; control panel, peripheral controllers, control logic, central processor, and programming experiments. Open lab format. Prerequisite: ECE 385; ECE 391 or CS 232. Recommended: Credit or concurrent registration in ECE 411.
Hours 3 hours.
Subject Area Computer Engineering
Course Prerequisites Credit in ECE 385
Credit in ECE 391 or CS 241
Course Directors Janak H Patel
Description Hardware-software co-design and integration of custom logic with microprocessor systems. Lab-based course covers effective design and testing techniques, implementation of hardware-software systems, interfacing I/O devices to microprocessors, and design for FPGAs.
Credit 3 hours
Topics
  • Architecture and Operation of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays
  • CAD tools for FPGAs
  • Bus interfaces
  • Memory systems
  • Hardware and software for interrupt-driven I/O
  • Video input and output
  • Implementation of Linux device drivers
Lab Projects
  1. Construct a simple circuit and download it to a FPGA. Use of FPGA CAD software and Xilinx FPGA board.
  2. Polling and interrupt-based communication between a microprocessor and I/O devices.
  3. Video input and output. Digitizing an NTSC video input stream and construction of VGA output hardware.
  4. Open-ended team design project.
Lab Equipment Intel PCs, Xilinx XUP FPGA board, Xilinx and Mentor CAD software, LCD displays, video cameras.
Course Prerequisites ECE 385; ECE 390 or CS 232. Recommended: Credit or concurrent registration in ECE 411.
Texts Class notes by the instructor.
ABET Category Engineering Design: 100%