MMP16 a 16-bit Didactic Micro-Programmed Micro-Processor

Abstract

MMP16 stands for 16-bit Didactic Micro-Programmed Micro-Processor and consists in a comprehensive learning tool for those students of electric engineering and related disciplines that, having studied the basics of digital electronics, need to understand the principles of computer organization prior to study advanced computer architecture. Therefore, MMP16 has been designed as a bridge between the study and use of digital electronic components and a full implementation of a digital microprocessor. MMP16 is a powerful tool not only to depict the basic concepts of a microprocessor layout and operation, but also to instruct advanced concepts such as pipelining. Besides the theoretical approach, MMP16 may be used as a software developing tool, allowing the students to develop and test their own microprograms using the simulation software provided. MMP16 is currently being used in the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and its deployment is under study in several European and Chinese universities.

Hardware description of a simplified 4-bit softcore processor with BCD capabilities

“…Due to the invention of hardware description languages like VHDL and Verilog and programmable logic devices like CPLDs, FPGAs and SOCs, since a pair of decades the learning focused on the design has been highly facilitated [2]. Different processor designs have been developed mainly with academic purposes, for teaching digital circuits [3][4][5][6], computer architecture [7][8][9][10] and embedded systems [11][12][13][14]. Most of these designs has been described using VHDL language [15][16][17], Verilog language [6,18], or even both.…”

“…Most of these designs has been described using VHDL language [15][16][17], Verilog language [6,18], or even both. Those designs can be classified taken into account the number of bits of their main data bus, basically there are 16-bit processors [8,9,13], 8-bit processors [17,19,20] and 4-bit processor [18]. These referenced implementations are as diverse as the universities and institutes where were designed, some have Von Neumann architecture, some other Harvard architecture, some are consider RISC, some other CISC, etc.…”

Evaluation and Comparison of Low FPGA Footprint, Embedded Soft-Core Processors

“…A big majority of the System-on-Chips (SoC) today [1], [2], [3] are built on a synchronous architecture and operate at a single clock frequency. In these cases, more than 40% of the power is consumed by the clock network.…”