A cost-effective way to expand the scope of FPGA based projects

Abstract

FPGA is widely used in Computer Engineering and related curricula. However, most lab exercises are performed and constrained largely in a self-contained FPGA board. A serial interface is a simple, cost-effective way to connect FPGA board to outside systems. It can be used to control a robot platform, to communicate with desktop computers, to interact with Android devices, to establish a ZigBee wireless link, and to connect to internet. This greatly expands the scope of FPGA based experiments and projects and makes them more interesting and versatile.