Teaching System Integration using FPGAs

To teach students circuit design with respect to system integration in an actual application environment, we use FPGAs as a part of the control system of a technical process. An infrared light based sensor system and an infrared based communication system together with controlling software have been developed by students in this context. All digital processing is implemented with Altera FPGAs that have been designed using AHDL and the MAX+plusII development system supported by EUROCHIP. Implementing the digital components of the technical process with FPGAs gives the advantage that designed components can be tested immediately in-circuit. This is especially useful for teaching where several design iterations have to be expected. Our course showed that most of our students did not realize that constraints emerging from the system environment have to be considered when digital system components are designed and simulated till they made their own practical experience. This paper describes..