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- Thursday, January 29, 2009
- An Educational Processor: A Design Approach
- Published at:Not Found
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Abstract
In this paper, we present an educational processor developed at An-Najah
National University. This processor has been designed to be a powerful
supplement for computer architecture and organization courses offered at the
university. The project is intended to develop an easily applicable methodology
by which students get a valuable experience in designing and implementing
complete processor with simple readily available off-the-shelf components. The
proposed methodology is beneficial to computer engineering students enrolled
at universities, specially in developing countries, where advanced laboratory
equipments are rarely available. The design philosophy is to build a generalpurpose
processor using simple and wide spread integrated circuits. This
methodology includes: defining an instruction set, datapath layout, ALU
implementation, memory interface, controller design and implementation. For
testing and evaluation purposes, a debugging tool is also built and implemented
to serially connect the processor to a personal computer. In this paper, we
present the methods and components used in the design and implementation
phases and the tools developed to complete the design process. This
methodology has shown that students enrolled in the computer architecture
course get the full experience in processor design without the need for advanced
laboratory equipments. The components used are cost efficient and methods
proposed allow students to work at home, hence, this methodology has proven
to be cost effective and yet very educational.
Key Words:
Educational Processor, RISC Architecture, Computer
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