An Approach for Teaching Processor Design

Real processors are not considered to be an adequate choice for education of students at beginner level due to their extensive complexity. The reasonable alternative is to develop didactic processors, described in Hardware Description Language (HDL) and mapped to the fabric of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). This paper presents a simple accumulator-based processor, developed for use as an educational model and design example. Possible experiments, where the students expand the basic functionality of the processor are suggested. The design and implementation steps, as well as future extensions are discussed.