Microprocessor Interfacing Laboratory

Derek B. Gottlieb, Nicholas P. Carter

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL 61801
{dgottlie, npcarter}@crhc.uiuc.edu

Abstract program for the Microsoft Windows GUI.

Similarly, all of the custom hardware was replaced by
This paper summarizes the rationale behind the revision an XESS XSV-300 FPGA prototyping board [3], which
of a microcomputer laboratory course involving hardware- addressed several of the previously mentioned problems.
software co-design and the integration of microcontroller- Since it is a commercial product, the option exists to eas-
based systems with a general-purpose microprocessor sys- ily purchase replacements if repairs are not feasible. The
tem. The revised course replaces aging custom hardware board also supports a wide array of functions that are not
with a high-performance PDA running Linux and a feature- all used during the structured labs, allowing the addition of
rich FPGA prototyping board. The resulting course ob- an open-ended design project to the curriculum. This flex-
jectives and content as well as early experiences are high- ibility combined with the inherent flexibility of a powerful
lighted. PDA running Linux provides students with a great amount
of freedom in their design projects.

1. Introduction 2. Course objectives

One of the long-running technical electives at the Uni-
versity of Illinois recently underwent a major revision in an The course objectives focus on several key elements of
effort to take advantage of more current technology. This embedded system design. In particular, they are:
course, Microprocessor Interfacing Laboratory (ECE 311)
[1], is one of several senior-level design courses offered by • Understand the tradeoffs in system design across the
the department. Previously, the course focused on interfac- hardware-software barrier
ing several custom boards to an embedded Intel 80386EX • Understand common techniques such as I/O and inter-
microprocessor. This approach suffered from a few signif- rupts
icant problems, which were primarily due to the extensive • Perform a major design project
use of custom hardware in the lab. Over time, this hardware
became increasingly difficult to maintain, especially since 3. Course content
several of the chips used were no longer readily available.
In addition, the limited versatility of this custom hardware
prevented the offering of an open-ended design project. This course is intended for senior undergraduate students
To address these issues, the course was revised to use in electrical or computer engineering who have completed
more modern hardware with a focus on flexibility. To this introductory digital logic design and microprocessor inter-
end, the embedded Intel 80386EX board was replaced by facing courses.
a HP iPAQ PDA running Linux. Linux was selected over The main task of the course is to complete four Machine
the pre-installed Microsoft Pocket PC OS for a variety of Problems (MPs) consisting of the following:
reasons. First, Linux is open-source and, therefore, source
code is easily obtained for any portions of the OS used in 1. Introduction to VHDL
the course. Second, our students have previous experience 2. PCMCIA and interrupts
with the Unix platform making it much easier for them to 3. Video and the NTSC standard
program for Linux than it would be to teach them how to 4. Design Project
 In the first MP, students familiarize themselves with the
available tools (CAD software and lab equipment) and de-
velop a simple PS/2 keyboard interface using the XSV-300.
This MP also includes a brief open-ended segment in which
students develop their own designs using the hardware they
have used up to that point. As time permits, similar sections
are included in the other structured labs for the course. In
the second MP, students develop a PCMCIA device inter-
face on the XSV-300 and a simple driver for the iPAQ to
support communication between the iPAQ and XSV-300. Figure 1. iPAQ and XSV-300
In the third MP, students develop a system that grabs video
data from an NTSC webcam and displays it on the iPAQ’s
LCD screen and a VGA monitor. The fourth MP is left filesystem image that is easily reloaded when necessary. On
as an open-ended design project in which students develop the other hand, the XSV-300s are fairly complicated boards
a hardware-software design that makes use of any of the which makes troubleshooting and repairing failures a dif-
equipment available to them. ficult task. Many of these failures seem to be caused by
overheating or incorrect signal values on the SRAM enable
lines. A new enclosure for the board is in development that
4. Laboratory support should alleviate the overheating problem and students will
receive greater guidance when developing their interface to
The laboratory is configured with 7 lab stations, each the SRAM chips in future semesters.
consisting of an XESS XSV-300 FPGA prototyping board Despite these issues, the revised course has been well re-
and a HP iPAQ H3600-series PDA running Linux (Figure ceived by students as demonstrated by the variety and com-
1). The XSV-300 combines an NTSC video decoder, VGA plexity of their design projects. Students have developed
RAMDAC, ethernet PHY, and a 20-bit stereo codec with a designs ranging from audio applications to games and 3-D
powerful Xilinx Virtex FPGA [2]. In addition, the board video. The course has generated enough enthusiasm in the
provides USB, PS/2, serial and parallel interfaces to the students that many of them have gone beyond the hardware
FPGA. The board also includes two expansion headers, one we provide by using additional special hardware in their
of which we use to connect to the PCMCIA slot of the iPAQ. projects such as custom amplifiers and targeting equipment.
The iPAQ provides an impressive amount of flexibil- Clearly, the advantages of newer, more versatile equipment
ity with a 206MHz StrongARM processor running Linux, is not lost on the students as illustrated by the variety and
32MB of RAM, 16MB of Flash ROM, and a 320x240 color creativity of their projects.
LCD display. The iPAQ also features an expansion connec-
tor that is used to add additional functionality by way of ex-
pansion packs. This course uses a dual PCMCIA expansion ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
pack to add two PCMCIA slots to the iPAQ. A PCMCIA
breakout board is used in one of these slots to support com- We would like to thank HP’s Cambridge Research Lab-
munication with the XSV-300. The other slot contains an oratory for the development of Linux for the iPAQ line of
ethernet adapter, which allows students to interact with the PDAs and XESS for the support received during the devel-
iPAQ using a desktop PC. opment of this course. This work was supported by course
In addition, a wide array of supplementary hardware is development funds from the University of Illinois.
supplied for students to use in their projects. This equip-
ment includes VGA displays, NTSC webcams, assorted au- References
dio equipment, and network hardware.
[1] ECE 311 Course Web Site. University of Illinois,
5. Experiences http://courses.ece.uiuc.edu/ece311/.
[2] X Engineering Software Systems Corporation. XSV Board
So far, the revised course has been offered twice, first V1.1 Manual, September 2001.
[3] XESS Web Site. X Engineering Software Systems Corpora-
in Spring 2002 and again in Fall 2002. During that time,
tion, http://www.xess.com/.
there have been some issues with the reliability of the equip-
ment. The iPAQs have stood up well to lab use, but the
XSV-300s have not fared as well. Over the course of two
semesters, a handful of iPAQs have reqiured software rein-
stallation, which is a trivial task since we have developed a