Development of an Environment to Efficiently Debug Small CPU Circuits Implemented on Breadboard in Student Experiments

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  • CPU作成実験における効率的な回路デバッグ環境の構築
  • CPU サクセイ ジッケン ニ オケル コウリツテキ ナ カイロ デバッグ カンキョウ ノ コウチク

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Abstract

In the Department of Electronics and Information Engineering at Ishikawa KOSEN, a series of student experiments are conducted to understand what a CPU is and how it works. In the experiments, a small CPU circuit is implemented on a breadboard using logic ICs. While the experiments contribute to improving students’ understanding of the CPU, some students are not able to complete the circuit implementation on breadboard since the circuits are larger and more complicated than other circuits made in student experiments. To solve the problem, an environment which supports debugging of the CPU circuit made in the experiments is proposed. The proposal consists of the following three parts: (1) Support of wiring among ICs utilizing a schematic editor software, (2) Capturing register values by replacing register ICs with shift register ICs, and (3) Detecting faulty parts in the circuit using test programs and shift registers. In this article, how these functionalities of debugging support are developed, and some case studies of each functionality are described. Additionally, expected effects and remaining development tasks for the application of the proposal to student experiments in practice are discussed.

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