Incorporating multicomputer hardware-software design concepts into the undergraduate curriculum through physical implementation

This paper presents a set of activities that have been undertaken within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez in order to aid in the development of an undergraduate parallel processing academic and research environment. Specifically, a plan of action that allows upper-level ECE students to collaborate in the construction of parallel processing systems using low-cost commercially available FPGA hardware and software prototyping tools is presented. The activities, which require minimal infrastructure, are designed to take the students through a complete system design cycle, from specifications to hardware/software prototype integration and are also geared towards the facilitation of the development of course materials and/or lab modules for the electronics' sequence of core and elective courses offered by our electrical and computer engineering department. These activities include the design and implementation of the hardware and software interfaces necessary to construct a fully functional microcontroller-based processing node for multiprocessing applications.