An existing microprocessor-based system design course is being developed into an application-specific architecture course. This course will have a new laboratory which is being developed so that students can implement their hardware prototypes using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). FPGAs allow students to quickly build, test, and modify their designs; thus architectural changes can be implemented within minutes reinforcing lessons in architectural optimization. A sequence of experiments is being developed build around audio processing systems designed to provide hardware/software tradeoffs for high-performance architectures tuned to specific algorithms.
