FPGA Simulation of Simple Finite-State Systems

This topic area will work on the Spartan-3 FPGA boards doing VHDL design and implementation. The goal is to create an FPGA simulation of one of the small systems that students work with in SE462 - Modeling of Real-Time Systems course (power window controller, chilled water AC system, mine pump controller, furnace system controller or a system of your creation with instructor approval). It would be equivalent to the FPGA simulator used in the garage door controller project in that course. The simulation should detect all error conditions in the control of the system, and include a standalone operation mode.

Your design work can be all in VHDL or can combine VHDL with programming of a PicoBlaze processor that can fit into the Spartan-3 FPGAs. Xilinx provides resources for the PicoBlaze. There are some tutorials for how to use the PicoBlaze that previous students have prepared (Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2, Tutorial 3).

This is a project that will only be assigned to a team of all software engineering students who are very interested in getting more experience with VHDL design for FPGAs. It would also help, but is not necessary, for someone working on this project to have taken SE462 - Modeling of Real-Time Systems.

Deliverables

A zipfile containing the following material:

• A report in a Word file containing
  • A description of how to interface to your simulator including wiring and timing diagrams
  • The design of your FPGA hardware interface to the peripheral including a block diagram as appropriate
  • Description of how to build and run your programs
  • Unresolved issues, and problems. Gotchas to watch out for.
• VHDL source for the project.
• If your project includes use of a PicoBlaze processor
  • A description of the design of your PicoBlaze program
  • Downloaded PicoBlaze programming tool
  • PicoBlaze source code for your simulator

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