Facing problems with student commitment, we decided to make a major change to our undergraduate annual project goal. In one word: have it more realistic vs. industrial background. So among other items, we introduced team projects with multiboard designs and decided to include a significant software part (in C running on a PC workstation)

We still wished to have students practice through the overall product design process: specification, entire hardware simulation, PCB design, end-product fabrication, test and validation (each including documentation design). But, considering that students are still learning the design process and EDA tools during this project, it was not possible to reduce the nine-month time window and allow for subsequent software integration and test, that may imply a new design cycle.

To solve this issue, we decided to introduce students to hardware/software co-design, and allow them to try it during PCB and fabrication. For this purpose, we designed a specific BLM interface symbol to emulate the interaction between the C program and the design. Students can link their program to the BLM code, and then run it on the UNIX workstation in the QuickSim environment. During this process they are encouraged to modify PLD programs (or even board designs if before the fabrication step) to achieve a zero-default design.

Bio:
Roland Mercier is responsible in his University for EDA courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He manages a 100 node network including 25 Mentor Graphics EDA seats. He supports the teaching team, managing libraries and providing customizations. He is directly involved in the following fields : UNIX and Xwindow management, VHDL modelization and synthesis, PCB projects, Telecom signal processing, Microwave. Since 1986, Roland has been the Networks and EDA Applications Manager in the IAO/IUT project involving 45 French university centers, and providing more than 350 Mentor Graphics seats for undergraduate EDA courses. He supported the V7-V8 conversion process. He has been teaching in the University of Paris 10 (the Ville d'Avray Center) since 1975. Roland has been the French MUG president since 1991 and EuroMUG president since 1993.