FPGA-MODELLING AND SIMULATION OF CODE CONVERTERS APPLIED IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

Global education has been a focus in American and European higher education for the last several years. Today students need to learn that they are interconnected and cannot isolate themselves from the world events. Students have the opportunity to develop competencies that will prepare them to live in a complex socially, politically and economically interdependent world. They need to understand the challenges they will face as they move into positions of leadership and acquire skills that will allow them to navigate a highly networked world. In the era of diminishing resources and demands for accelerated learning, 63% of employers believe that many recent students do not have the skills they need to succeed in the global economy.

The impact of modern ICT technologies changes the way in which students learn and how they evaluate the learning tools. Today students prefer to study with modern ICT learning tools. One of the priorities of the universities nowadays is the development of modern education with the introduction of educational software tools that will attract the students’ attention.

The training of computer engineers is also a great challenge because it requires practical skills in laboratory conditions to develop the ability of students to apply acquired knowledge in solving specific problems/tasks. An important stage in an effective learning process for engineers is an experimental stimulus for active learning. This is achieved by performing laboratory exercises. Modelling and simulations with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) of specific tasks enable engineers to solve practical tasks and to understand the studied methods and processes. Laboratory experiments introduce the research approach into the educational process.

The courses “Pulse and Digital Devices” and “Digital Circuits” aim at introducing the students of the specialty “Electronics” and “Computer Systems and Technologies” in the University of Ruse to the main issues of the digital electronics. The basic principle of the courses is to connect the functional capabilities of the digital components with their microelectronic base as well as their applications in constructing pulse and digital devices. For the purpose of the courses a laboratory board based on Spartan-6 FPGA, offering industry leading connectivity features, was created at the Department of Electronics at the University of Ruse. The logic blocks in FPGAs can be configured to perform complex combinational functions. In most FPGAs, logic blocks also include memory elements, which may be simple flip-flops. In the courses it is envisaged to study different functional units of combinational type: encoders, decoders, multiplexers, demultiplexers, code converters, digital comparators and various arithmetic circuits. One of the topics covered in the course is the synthesis and analysis of code converters of the decimal digits presented in some binary-decimal code to the widely-used code “2 of 5”.

In order to better assimilate the material studied by students, active learning is applied. An individual assignment is given to each student. The assignment includes:
1) synthesis of a given code converter with AND, OR and NOT gates and simulating its operation using Logisim;
2) implementation of the code converter and testing it on the board. The implementation is based on the schematic presentation in ISE Project Navigator. Incorporating active learning into the curriculum transforms the classroom into an exciting, dynamic learning environment.