Computer Laboratory – ECAD and Architecture Practical Classes: About

Computer Laboratory > Teaching > Course material 2008–09 > All courses > ECAD Labs > About


	About the Labs

The Labs have been designed to be undertaken in conjunction with the ECAD and Computer Design courses for Pat IB students. They require knowledge gained from those courses - mostly in Verilog and MIPS Assembler. It is strongly recommended that you look over the Labs before attending them, since you will only have a fixed amount of time with a demonstrator present to complete the practical.


	The Altera DE2 Development and Education Board

The DE2 Board is based around an Altera Cyclone II FPGA. Unlike the previous board used in the ECAD labs, this one does not include a processor. Instead, in the 2nd lab, you will be making use of a soft-processor, which will be introduced during your Computer Architecture lectures.

The board also has many additional features, such as audio in/out and microphone ports, a serial interface, 2 general-purpose IO headers, 512 Kb of SRAM memory, and 4MB of flash. Details of these and the rest of the components can also be found in the user manual.