CS491/492 Senior Design Project
Topics available from Will Sawyer
Processor design project with software tools: a team of 4-5 students will, after researching computer architecture, design their own 32-bit instruction set architecture (call it XYZ). After documenting this architecture, the members of the team will then write an assembler for their processor, an XYZ-to-IA32 simulator, and an implementation modeled in an HDL such as Verilog, so that programs written in XYZ assembly language can be simulated on a PC, as well as "run" on the hardware they have modeled using a HDL simulator.
Embedded appliance controller: a team of 3-4 students will design and build an embedded appliance controller (for a microwave oven, washing machine, smart house, set of elevators, etc) using the ARM, picoJavaII CPU or other suitable microcontroller. After designing and building system hardware, they will write the application software to make the system work. In addition, a test suite will be designed and run on the controller, and user documentation (sales brochure, user manual, diagnostic/repair guide) will be provided.
MIPS32 ISA hardware implementation: a team of 3-5 students will use a modeling language to build and test a full architecture model of the MIPS32 processor, including all integer and floating point instructions, pipelining with forwarding, branch prediction, exception handling, instruction re-ordering, and realistic timing constraints. Then the architecture will be synthesized and realized on a FPGA. To verify the design and implementation, both simulation testing and actual performance testing will be performed..
Important things to know
CS491 and CS492 are a 2-semester sequence of courses, that must both be passed together in order to graduate. Details can be found at the course home pages for CS491 and CS492.
The above projects all require a strong background in computer organization, and a desire to go much deeper into hardware than the CS233/224 course sequence.
I am willing to advise and help with resources but the students taking any of the above projects must be ready to work diligently and consistently over the year. There are deadlines established by the department (see the schedule for the 2012/2013 academic year) and each checkpoint will have an impact on the grade. Students will meet regularly with me for progress reporting.
More information about these projects can be obtained in person. Please make an appointment to come by: email me or call (312) 290-3398