GARTHWILSON wrote:
What is normally meant is writing the gate code in a hardware description language like Verilog or VHDL, and then programming it into programmable gate arrays. Then you genuinely get your microprocessor creation into a single IC.
Garth
That being said, creating a CPU by hand using discrete component TTL or similar logic family is very instructional in ways that VHDL/Verilog simply
can't be. Indeed, it is the
only to truely get "hands on" experience in CPU design.
I designed and implemented a 4-bit and 8-bit discrete component CPU once in my life, and I'd like to follow up with a 16-bit stack architecture processor that is, unlike its 8-bit predecessor, actually useful for something. I did this without the benefit of software simulation tools, too; indeed, I was only 17 when my 4-bit CPU ran for the first time. Needless to say, I was overjoyed.