USB on a breadboard?

Hello all,
I'm at instructor at a large US school who has slowly been moving into
teaching embedded systems. I know very little about embedded systems
in the real world (I'm more of an architect), but I've learned a lot by
teaching and working with students on embedded projects.

We currently have a class that uses a combination of an MPC823 and an
FPGA to do software/hardware design. It is mostly in assembly (a bit
of C) and covers the details of doing memory-mapped I/O, designing the
hardware devices, interrupts (in gory detail), timers and A/D stuff.

I've been trying to upgrade our embedded systems offerings and so I am
offering a class next semester that is a follow-on to the current one.
I've have chosen to go with two different platforms, an ARM based
system from Intel (sitsang) with an OS, color touch LCD, and crazy
amounts of I/O as well as an Atmel based portion (ATmega8) where the
students will design (and get built) a board.

So now the questions:
#1 Is there a USB chip that I could possibly talk to with the ATmega8?
I'd love something I can put on a breadboard without having to solder
very small wires. Looking at the student projects I'm expecting, USB
may be a pretty common desire. The sitsang board does USB in its
sleep, but I'd like them designing their own hardware where possible.

#2 Same as #1 but for ethernet.

#3 What do _you_ all think is important for them to know? If you were
to hire one of our graduates, what specific skills would you be looking
for? Are skills like being good with solder important to any/many of
you? Just software?

#4 What am I missing?

More background:
I'm going to teach a fair bit about how to interface with an OS (for
the sitsang) and the basics of Linux drivers. I'm also going to spend
a short time on the AVR architecture and interupts (which I'm still
learning) as well as a bit on the basics of board design. I'm planning
on having a few guest speakers come in and talk about what they do (one
a WIMS person, one works for Rabbit, and maybe a Lockheed-Martin
embedded person).

The major goal of the class is to give them the oppertunity to design a
system (probably involving board design) of their choosing. We have a
reasonable budget (thanks Lockheed-Martin!) of around $800 per group of
4 students. So we should be able to build some cool things!

Answers to the above or random thoughts greatfully accepted!

.

Relevant Pages

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