Incorporating Soft Core And Hard Core Processors In Capstone Design Courses

This paper provides details of our electrical engineering program efforts to introduce sot and hard core processors and the concept of SoC in senior-level and senior-design courses. The paper provides details of laboratory exercises and a senior project that is implemented using both soft core and hard core processors on three different FPGA boards. Advantages and disadvantages of each of these implementations will also be presented. The paper will also detail the challenges involved in using continually-evolving embedded processing tools and the efforts made to reduce their learning times.