Abstract:

We describe in this paper the proposed curricula and laboratory works for the subject of Programmable Electronic Systems with FPGA from the Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages, University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest. The lectures start with the recapitulation of topics like logic gates, arithmetic and Boolean operations, as well as combinational and sequential logic circuits and continues with Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) design and Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) programming. On the practical side, for the previous subject of Logic Design, the students used a gradual approach consisting of simulation, continued with breadboard design and finished with circuits made on perfboard. Coding will replace the hands-on experience using digital integrated circuits and will allow the planning and development of more complicated circuits. There will be emphasized some of the advantages of FPGA design, including the fault-tolerance, reusability of code, the ease of use and the performance of the simulation. The native reuse of the existing knowledge will lead to the creation of better designs, allowing the students to conclude the laboratory with a solution to a practical problem, benefiting from the Project-Based Learning approach.

Keywords:

Logic Design, Field-Programmable Gate Array, FPGA, VHDL, Project-Based Learning.