Partnership expands scope of university programme

EUROPRACTICE is a European Commission initiative, which aims to stimulate the wider adoption of state-of-the-art microelectronics design. The organization provides easy access to a wide range of cost-effective and leading-edge electronic system design tools, with routes to IC fabrication for non-commercial teaching and research in academic institutions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia.

As a result of the collaboration between Imagination and EUROPRACTICE, students and researchers will be able to create innovative, secure SoC designs and for the first time fabricate a small number of devices with an advanced industry standard embedded processor core. These advanced systems can find applications in a wide variety of markets ranging from microcontrollers and wearables to home networking and entertainment to automotive and storage. MIPS M-class CPUs can be found in hundreds of millions of chips being shipped today.

The partnership with EUROPRACTICE is the latest in a series of initiatives that Imagination has undertaken to provide a complete and unique path for academia to improve CPU architecture education at universities. Earlier this year, Imagination launched MIPSfpga, which offers universities around the world free and open access to a fully-validated, current generation MIPS CPU in a comprehensive teaching package. Imagination also has a strong position in teaching the theory of computer architecture with MIPS.

Two of the top books currently used by colleges around the world use the elegant MIPS architecture as a foundation: “Computer Organization and Design” by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy, and “Digital Design & Computer Architecture” by David Harris and Sarah Harris. Now the partnership with EUROPRATICE extends the use of MIPS as a key teaching architecture by enabling students to fully study and understand the implementation of a CPU in silicon.

Robert Owen, manager, Worldwide University programme, Imagination, comments: “With the phenomenal success of our MIPSfpga programme, we’ve been receiving an increasing number of requests from professors and universities around the world about how they can add value to their projects by enabling researchers and students to put their designs into silicon. Our partnership with EUROPRACTICE will enable students to design and bring to fruition highly differentiated products that take full advantage of the efficiency, performance and unique features of MIPS CPUs. This includes Imagination’s OmniShield multi-domain security technology, which will enable them address the stringent security and reliability needs of many next-generation products.”

S Dr. John A. McLean, head of the EUROPRACTICE design tool service, which is managed by the Microelectronics Support Centre at the Science and Technology Facilities Council Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, says: “Over the last 20 years, EUROPRACTICE has endeavored to bring leading technologies, technical support and training to universities to ensure that students are appropriately educated for their future work in the industry. Our partnership with Imagination is historic since for the first time it provides students with access to the world-class MIPS architecture so they can learn how to design and build cutting-edge products for tomorrow.”

Member universities who participate in the EUROPRACTICE programme can license M-class CPUs for a modest fee and will receive training and on-going support from EUROPRACTICE as they create their prototypes and produce sample quantities in silicon.