Data and network communications protocol motherboard using reconfigurable hardware

The introduction of reconfigurable devices such as the field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) have provided electrical, electronics and computer engineers with a versatile and cost-effective method of designing circuits, developing devices and implementing electronic, communications, computer and other related systems. This paper presents the use of FPGA in the development of a mother board to introduce the concepts of data and network communications protocol through different interfaces such as VGA, PS/2, serial communications and parallel communications. Moreover, since it is FPGA-based, this motherboard can be reconfigured or expanded to perform other protocols making it open to a lot of possibilities.