MELODI: An Online Platform for Mass Education of Digital Design - HDL to Remote FPGA

Learning and teaching digital hardware design involves significant efforts on both sides, teachers and students. Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) simplify the design process, where the created designs can be tested either in simulators or using real hardware. For the latter, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) play a crucial role in facilitating and speeding up the prototyping process. Mass E-Learning of design, test, and prototyping Digital hardware (MELODI) is developed for scalable teaching of HDL to a large number of students. The primary goals are to a) minimize the requirements for students and b) reduce the resources required at the university. MELODI provides a complete HDL workflow, including real remote hardware prototyping on FPGAs without the need for any tool at the students’ side.