System on Programmable Chip Development System

The embedded systems have received increasing research interest in recent years due to its wide usage. This paper presents system on programmable chip (SOPC), a new technology in the embedded systems, to support the development of design projects for undergraduate students in their electrical and computer engineering curriculum. FPGA-based SOPC development board with reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor cores, a top-down design approach with FPGA computer-aided design tools, a C compiler for the RISC soft-processor core and a large FPGA with on-chip memory are used for a wide variety of student design projects. The course, which includes both software and hardware, can meet the different needs of students from different professional backgrounds and contribute to a better understanding between electrical engineering and computer science and therefore can increase the competitiveness of students.