Introducing Hybrid Design Approach At The Undergraduate Level

Nowadays, embedded developers are designing their applications using a hybrid approach where the configurable components of the design are implemented in software, and the time critical components are implemented in hardware. Most of the universities, on the other hand, are still teaching these two design approaches separately. A typical electrical and computer engineering (ECE) program includes a class on embedded software design using microcontrollers and a class on hardware design using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). This paper explains a teaching plan to introduce this hybrid design approach at the undergraduate level. The plan was applied successfully in an elective class at the University of Akron. A similar approach is used in a required course for computer engineering students at the Ohio Northern University. This paper presents the teaching plans and experiences from the two course offerings.