Modularized development platform for hardware/software design

During the hardware or software developing process, the designer usually uses a particular hardware platform that meets the purpose of design goal. In school, since more and more hardware/software design courses are delivered, different kinds of platforms have to be prepared for students. This increases extra cost to buy and learn these platforms. In this article, we propose a modularized development platform for FPGA and embedded system design. The proposed development platform is modularly designed and divided to core modular boards and peripheral modular boards. Designers can combine different modules for various purposes to fit requirements in the lab. Thus more flexible hardware and software projects can be realized with lower cost due to reusable modules. We have built up several projects to demonstrate the functions of the proposed platforms. A pedestrian traffic signal controller, a digital photo frame, and a video surveillance system realized by the proposed platform are introduced in this article.