Using JTAG Interface to Enhance Microprocessor Education

摘要

Microcontroller systems are widely used in our daily lives and are almost entirely controlled by System on chips (SoCs) because of their advantages and development in high density integrated circuits, that of which reduces system design time, reduces system cost and increases the system's reliability. Therefore, SoCs should be widely adopted by engineering education systems in order to meet requirements in the job market; furthermore, low cost SoCs allow them to be widely used in affordable education systems for students while ensuring a low lab maintenance cost in the education system. However, higher integrated SoCs might be harder to use in Introduction of Microprocessor/Microcontroller courses because it is harder for student to have access to peripheral circuits. The complex system setup, such as bootloader code, confuses those students less acquainted in microcontroller, too. In this paper, JTAG interface is adopted to use SoCs in our Introduction of Microcontrollers course. It allows students to access to the internal circuits in SoCs, which helps students understand the structure of microcontrollers. Furthermore, students can use JTAG interface to configure peripherals without any software background, so students can have hands-on practice from the beginning of class, even though they may be less familiar in microcontroller and software design for microcontroller systems.