Logisim Evolution (fork)

A fork of a well known graphical logic simulator to enable learning computer architecture withouth the distractions of lower level logic design.

Software Author

Borja Pérez, Esteban Stafford, Jose Luis Bosque

Research Lines:

Computer architecture

Software Cost:

GNU General Public License v3.0

Source:

https://github.com/esteban-stafford/logisim-evolution/

Upstream Logisim

Logisim-evolution is educational software for designing and simulating digital logic circuits. Logisim-evolution is free, open-source, and cross-platform.

Project highlights:

• easy to use circuit designer,
• logic circuit simulations,
• chronogram (to see the evolution of signals in your circuit),
• electronic board integration (schematics can be simulated on real hardware),
• VHDL components (components behavior can be specified in VHDL!),
• TCL/TK console (interfaces between the circuit and the user),
• huge library of components (LEDs, TTLs, switches, SoCs),
• supports multiple languages,
• and more!

ATC Fork

At the ATC Group we have added some improvements to this great piece of software, in order to make it more usable for our students. The most notorious addition is a base class to create custom components whose internal operation is defined in Java. This is a very useful feature for teaching purposes, as it allows students to focus on high-level design of components without the complexity of low-level circuit design.

With these features, at the ATC Group we have designed several processors and peripherals that are used in our laboratory sessions for computer architecture courses. The processors include single-cycle and pipelined architectures, both in ARM and RiscV favours. Processors and materials are available upon request.

References

Learning Computer Architecture with a Visual Simulation of RISC-V Processors

Learning Computer Architecture with a Visual Simulation of RISC-V Processors (Abstract)