FPGA-Based Flash Memory Controller for BZK.SAU.FPGA10.1 Microcomputer Architecture Design as an Educational Tool

Abstract

Operating systems and computer architecture and organization course are fundamental topics underlying many disciplines, including computer, electrical and electronics engineering departments. These courses involve both a theoretical and practical part for the effective learning process. A FPGA-based micro computer architecture design named BZK.SAU.FPGA10.1 was proposed to reinforce computer architecture and organization fundamentals in 2011. Also we developed an educational operating system named BZK.SAUOS from scratch on BZK.SAU.FPGA10.1 architecture. The program written using the user interface of this operating system was saved to main memory of this microcomputer architecture since it does not have a nonvolatile memory unit. So the process of editing on a file previously written is not impossible. This paper addresses an effective learning approach that permits one to work on real computer architecture and original operating system while supporting easily to save and edit their program using flash memory instead of main memory. The flash memory controller in this work have been designed completely hardware. So this controller allows the students to examine the internal structure of this controller while improving the motivation in the control of storage units like flash memory, hard disk etc. Overall, this work helps the students to improve controller design experience of storage units in low-level in addition to an increase in their learning process in the computer architecture and operating systems topics. Index Terms-BZK.SAU.FPGA, educational tool, memory controller, microcomputer architecture design, operating system. I. INTRODUCTION Operating systems and Computer architecture and organization courses are some of the main courses in the computer engineering and computer science. The effective learning process in these courses involves both a theoretical and practical part. There are several of designs and simulators in the open literature to improve the motivation in these courses. We also developed two FPGA-based microcomputer architecture designs named BZK.SAU.FPGA10.0 and BZK.SAU.FPGA10.1 in addition to literature. Then we designed an educational operating system named Manuscript