A Novel Visual Aid and Teaching Materials for the Design Training of Embedded Microprocessors

Since the embedded system is prevailing in recent consuming electronics, an embedded microprocessor should be designed according to a specific need. Hence, we propose a visual aid called CHMPU-01 which aims at enabling undergraduate students to design an embedded microprocessor of their own for such purposes. In the related textbooks of computer architecture, many figures are provided to explain how a microprocessor works in order that the students can have the know-how to design a microprocessor. Instead of static figures in the textbooks, a novel visual aid based on a general microprocessor is implemented so as to provide a better way for learning the practical issues of designing an embedded microprocessor. Our aid visualizes the buried signals crucial to the learning of microprocessor architecture inside a general microprocessor. This microprocessor supports manual control of step-by-step execution of instruction fetching/decoding, operands reading, ALU operation and result written back. In each step of execution, the crucial signals are sent out and shown on a LED panel printed with a figure of microprocessor architecture. Along with the hardware support, our aid also provides basic training materials, advanced training materials and an open source library of hardware components for building microprocessors. The basic training materials enable students to build a sample microprocessor with some standard peripheral controllers for basic applications. The advanced training materials stimulate them to design a custom microprocessor with custom hardware and custom instructions. Our goal is to guide the learner how to design an embedded microprocessor of their own when some specific applications need to be implemented and upgraded in performance.