A course on Advanced SOC FPGA in Embedded systems

A course on Advanced SOC FPGA in automotive systems As the number of complex embedded system applications are increasing there is a demand to use advanced FPGAs for automotive embedded system design. This course describes the concepts of system design with the latest FPGAs (Field programmable gate arrays) which can also implement multiple soft-core microcontrollers in the FPGA, and can have already pre-built multi-core hard-core processors (Called system on a Chip, SOC FPGA). A lists of laboratory exercises, simple automotive applications and end of the semester course projects. This course covers the design of advanced FPGAs with soft-core / hard-core micros and automotive applications. The applications taught include digital signal processing, image processing, display, automotive navigation etc. This paper describes a senior undergraduate/ graduate level course with details of the topics taught, text books to use, software tools to use, the lab exercises and projects. Standards and requirements for Advanced Driver Assisted Systems (ADAS) and In-Vehicle Experience (IVE) applications are evolving. There is a need for flexibility, faster development cycles, and a high performance for real time automotive control. By combining reprogrammable FPGAs with an expanding range of automotive-grade FPGAs ADAS and Electric Vehicle embedded system requirements are met. We present the details of automotive-grade FPGAs and SoCs, design concepts that enable flexibility, low latency, high performance-per-watt, functional safety, and security advantages for ADAS/AD applications. Some new applications include gesture recognition, driver monitoring systems and blind spot detection. FPGA flexibility provides flexible design for evolving In-Vehicle Experience. The topics covered include • Elements of Embedded Systems Design • Real Time systems Requirements • Field Programmable devices • VHDL based design and design of Logic modules • Simple CPU design • Design with embedded processors • Softcore processors NIOS II implementation inside FPGA • Use of Hardcore ARM processor inside SOC-FPGAs • Automotive applications and software standards. • Laboratory exercises with Intel DE1 SOC boards and project