Department of Computer Science and Technology

Course pages 2017–18

ECAD and Architecture Practical Classes

Tick 2

To achieve Tick 2 you need to:

  • Answer the following questions on screen or on paper, and show them to a demonstrator
  • Show the demonstrator your working Etch-A-Sketch on FPGA

To achieve Tick 2*, instead of Etch-A-Sketch you can demonstrate a game such as Pong or Space Invaders.

Questions

  1. Clarvi has two memory ports, one for instructions and one for data. In our design we wire both to the same memory. What advantages and disadvantages does this have over using separate memories?

  2. Consider if we added a hundred Clarvi cores to our Qsys project. What challenges would we face? How would this differ from the x86 multicore CPU you might find in your laptop? (beyond simply the number of cores). Hint: think about how the memory hierarchies differ.

Procedure

You will need to hand in your results as part of your Portfolio of Assessed Laboratory work in Lent term, so keep them safe. In the portfolio you should include:

  • Your answers to the questions
  • A printout of the top level Verilog of your FPGA system

On each document you should add a header:

Name of practical class and tick: ECAD+Arch tick 2
Full name:
CRSID:
College: