On the introduction of reconfigurable hardware into computer architecture education

The introduction of reconfigurable logic devices as teaching-aids, into undergraduate and graduate education, enables the students to conduct experiments they could otherwise not perform. Furthermore, this approach gives instructors the freedom to choose architectures that are dictated by the underlying hardware to a lesser extent. Today's Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) can implement integer units as complex as the SPARC V8 at a reasonable hardware price. Educational boards that replace conventional CPUs with reconfigurable logic devices can be integrated into an existing syllabus with legacy hardware requirements without disruption, as long as the soft-CPU core on the reconfigurable logic device provides opcode compatibility with the superseded processing unit.