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A New Approach in Microprocessor/Microcontroller Courses/Laboratories Material Design and Development Abstract

Courses in microprocessors and microcontrollers are standard parts of the Engineering Technology core curricula. The traditional course material developments include both lectures and associated laboratory exercises. No matter how creative is the curriculum; it is usually budgetary constraints that confine the creativity when developing new curricula. This limits the freedom of the major approach in new course development. This article demonstrates new course lecture and laboratories material development that starts from ground up with both a hardware platform and simulation software design for microprocessor/microcontroller related courses. It is not only very cost effective, but also does not limit the instructor’s creativity when developing new curricula. The only obstacle is the instructor’s imagination on courses and laboratories activities. This system can be implemented at no cost to the department for sponsoring the courses. As a matter of fact, the initial trials of this system have generated revenue, thereby supporting future improvements and development needs. This new approach in course improvement starts with the design of a hardware platform in a custom made evaluation board. It involves the system circuit and power supply design, printed circuit board layout, prototype testing, and circuit board fabrication. The second step is to design the simulation software for laboratory uses. The total design and development of both software and hardware was a two year evolutionary process.

I. Introduction

The 68HC11 EVB (evaluation board) was made by Motorola, Inc. in the 1980’s.9 Due to the effort of Motorola University Support program, this EVB was very popular in most of the universities and community colleges microprocessor/microcontroller related courses and projects designs. When Motorola spin off their microprocessor division to Freescale Inc., 5 the 68HC11 EVB became very hard to obtain. The alternative EVB made by Axiom is more expensive. 1 Another draw back is that the alternative board has limited functions as compared to the original Motorola 68HC11 EVB.1,9 In order to extend the use of the 68HC11 EVB and keep all 68HC11 CPU laboratory exercises and project designs intact, the design/development of a modified Motorola 68HC11 development system became a reasonable choice. The objectives of this new approach are: (1) sustain the use of the 68HC11 CPU, (2) keep the EVB hardware cost to a minimum, (3) make a smooth transition from 8 bit CPU to 16 bit CPU applications, (4) give students ownership of flexible hardware that can be used in several courses, and (5) relieve the financial burden on the institution. After two trials in designing and testing of the hardware circuits and implementation in the laboratory with students for two years, this hardware was named the “CETHC11EVB2” and has been successfully used in several related courses.

To minimize the students’ errors in utilizing the 68HC11 instructions and addressing modes, a teaching assistant software simulator was also developed to be used with this hardware. This software is not a comprehensive simulator and is not intended to compete with

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Hsiung, S., & Willis, J. (2006, June), A New Approach In Microprocessor/Microcontroller Courses/Laboratories Material Design And Development Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--218