Undergraduate Research Experiences Using FPGAs

David H. Hoe

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Conference: 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Publication Date: June 10, 2012
Start Date: June 10, 2012
End Date: June 13, 2012
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Electrical and Computer Poster Session
Tagged Division: Electrical and Computer
Page Count: 12
Page Numbers: 25.1389.1 - 25.1389.12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--22146
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/22146
Download Count: 664

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David H. Hoe University of Texas, Tyler

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David Hoe received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto. He held a position as a Staff Engineer at the General Electric Corporate Research and Development Center for five years prior to assuming his current position as an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Texas, Tyler, in 2008.

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Abstract

Undergraduate Research Experiences using FPGAsModern Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have developed to the point where they areused by engineers to implement a variety of complex digital systems that were formerly reservedfor Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Thus, it has been important to introduceour students to an important design methodology as well as to integrate this method intoundergraduate research.The University of ________ currently has an FPGA Design class as a senior elective. Up untillast year, an undergraduate did not have an opportunity to do research in FPGA design untiltaking this class. In the summer of 2010, the author decided to do research in this area with onestudent who had just finished his junior year but had not taken the FPGA class. Having taken therequired classes in Digital Systems and Microprocessor Design, the student was able to learnhow to synthesize designs on the FPGA using VHDL. This undergraduate student was able topresent a conference paper based on his work this past spring. The key to success was finding amotivated student and a graduate student doing research in a related area to mentor him. Basedon this success, four more undergraduate students were involved in research with FPGAs thispast summer. This paper will describe the ongoing efforts to engage the students in FPGAresearch, examining such issues as motivation, training, and an evaluation of the overalleffectiveness of using undergraduates for research in this area.Some results from this past summer will be detailed in the paper. The students were trained inusing VHDL through a weekly seminar and then given tutorials to work through (similar to thelab tutorials from our FPGA class). Two graduate students were assigned to mentor theundergraduate students as well. The author’s observation was that the students seemed to be ableto pick the basics of VHDL coding after three weeks of training. At this point, they were givenresearch projects to work. The projects extended ongoing research projects from both graduatestudents and the previous undergraduate student. This paper will describe the research that weare doing in arithmetic logic and cellular computing implemented on FPGAs that is suitable foran undergraduate students to work on.This paper will also discuss the ongoing research by the undergraduates this fall and comingspring semester. Methods for motivation will be discussed. Some things we are doing includeforming an FPGA club with the core group of students. Some activities such as buildingelectronic kits and studying Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science are related to the research andprovide a team atmosphere.Student attitudes towards the research experiences are obtained through surveys. The surveyfrom the summer reported overall student satisfaction with their experience and progress,although some reported a desire to have more interaction with the professor and more time towork on the research. Additional surveys are planned for the fall and spring semesters. Theeffectiveness of the student research will be judged by the results from poster and conferencepaper presentations. The results from several poster competitions have shown the promisingprogress made to date. A couple of conference papers will be submitted this semester based onthe undergraduate research and will be discussed in this paper.

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Hoe, D. H. (2012, June), Undergraduate Research Experiences Using FPGAs Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--22146

TY - CPAPER
AB - Undergraduate Research Experiences using FPGAsModern Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have developed to the point where they areused by engineers to implement a variety of complex digital systems that were formerly reservedfor Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Thus, it has been important to introduceour students to an important design methodology as well as to integrate this method intoundergraduate research.The University of ________ currently has an FPGA Design class as a senior elective. Up untillast year, an undergraduate did not have an opportunity to do research in FPGA design untiltaking this class. In the summer of 2010, the author decided to do research in this area with onestudent who had just finished his junior year but had not taken the FPGA class. Having taken therequired classes in Digital Systems and Microprocessor Design, the student was able to learnhow to synthesize designs on the FPGA using VHDL. This undergraduate student was able topresent a conference paper based on his work this past spring. The key to success was finding amotivated student and a graduate student doing research in a related area to mentor him. Basedon this success, four more undergraduate students were involved in research with FPGAs thispast summer. This paper will describe the ongoing efforts to engage the students in FPGAresearch, examining such issues as motivation, training, and an evaluation of the overalleffectiveness of using undergraduates for research in this area.Some results from this past summer will be detailed in the paper. The students were trained inusing VHDL through a weekly seminar and then given tutorials to work through (similar to thelab tutorials from our FPGA class). Two graduate students were assigned to mentor theundergraduate students as well. The author’s observation was that the students seemed to be ableto pick the basics of VHDL coding after three weeks of training. At this point, they were givenresearch projects to work. The projects extended ongoing research projects from both graduatestudents and the previous undergraduate student. This paper will describe the research that weare doing in arithmetic logic and cellular computing implemented on FPGAs that is suitable foran undergraduate students to work on.This paper will also discuss the ongoing research by the undergraduates this fall and comingspring semester. Methods for motivation will be discussed. Some things we are doing includeforming an FPGA club with the core group of students. Some activities such as buildingelectronic kits and studying Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science are related to the research andprovide a team atmosphere.Student attitudes towards the research experiences are obtained through surveys. The surveyfrom the summer reported overall student satisfaction with their experience and progress,although some reported a desire to have more interaction with the professor and more time towork on the research. Additional surveys are planned for the fall and spring semesters. Theeffectiveness of the student research will be judged by the results from poster and conferencepaper presentations. The results from several poster competitions have shown the promisingprogress made to date. A couple of conference papers will be submitted this semester based onthe undergraduate research and will be discussed in this paper.
AU - David H. Hoe
CY - San Antonio, Texas
DA - 2012/06/10
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Undergraduate Research Experiences Using FPGAs
UR - https://peer.asee.org/22146
DO - 10.18260/1-2--22146
ER -