Using an FPGA-based SOC approach for senior design projects

This paper describes our experiences using a SOC approach to develop capstone design projects for undergraduate students in our electrical and computer engineering curriculum. A commercial FPGA-based SOC development board with a RISC processor IP core is used to support a wide variety of student design projects. A top-down rapid prototyping approach with commercial CAD tools, a C compiler targeted for the RISC processor IP core, and a large field-programmable logic device (FPLD) is used for team-based design projects.