Breaking Boundaries among Hardware Curriculums by EDA Technology

Hardware curriculums are important basic courses in computer science education. However, there are some problems in studying these courses, such as ambiguous learning purpose, lacking interest, inflexible experiment methods, etc. These problems hamper students´ learning. In this paper, firstly we discuss these problems in detail. Then we introduce the widely used EDA (electronic design automation) technology into hardware curriculums education. We also present a hardware curriculum group, including group construction, courses, and reform based on EDA. Lastly, we give an example, building a toy CPU, to present the process of all-in-one curriculum group experiment. These methods can solve the above problems to a certain extent, and help students to comprehend multi-level hardware and software knowledge. Therefore, the EDA technology can bring a positive effect on improving teaching qualities, enhancing students´ learning interests and training students´ research abilities.