An Introduction to Soft-Core Processors and a Biomedical Application

Despite the ubiquity of microcontrollers, widespread use of soft-core microprocessors is much less common. Most undergraduate curricula have a digital course involving field programmable gate array (FPGA) programming, in languages such as VHDL or Verilog, and separately have a microcontroller course that uses the C language. But few synthesize these two topics to involve programming an FPGA to simulate a microcontroller.This article details a senior-level elective course in which students designed a chemotherapeutic cancer research device using a soft-core processor at the heart of their product. The students describe how they chose to use a soft-core processor and how the implementation involved many nights of struggle, culminating with debugging at 70 mi/h in a car to make the delivery deadline.