Building a microprocessor architecture at Computer Engineering undergraduate courses

The learning process of Computer Organization and Architecture is fundamental for students of Computer Engineering and related areas. The complexity and lack of familiarity of the students with the content make it difficult to understand essential concepts for the development of fundamental skills for a computing area professional. This paper introduces a conceptual microprocessor implemented in three different courses of Computing Engineering undergraduate: Computer Organization and Architecture, Very Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) Circuit Design, and Embedded Systems Design. The overall idea is to link the fundamental concepts of Computer Organization and Architecture with hands-on opportunity to develop the blocks, such as registers or program memory, using a hardware description language, and applying this microprocessor on embedded systems design, using it as a softcore processor. Initial results showed the students get more involved in their learning process when they understand the usage and application of those concepts.