Teaching FPGA-based systems

In this paper we report on recent advances in teaching Field-Programmable Gate Array-based systems within engineering courses given in two Universities: University of Aveiro in Portugal and Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia. Although both institutions have a 6-year history of intensive and fruitful collaboration in this area there is a constant need to update both the teaching methods and the respective laboratory equipment and tools to keep in pace with the demanding industry requirements. This paper describes the most recent changes in the organization of the respective courses and the corresponding teaching materials. In particular, the developed communication modules required for software/hardware co-design are explained in detail.