New on Coursera: AMBA AXI protocols overview

Arm Training is launching its fifth course on Coursera: AMBA AXI Protocols Overview.

This course builds on the Cortex-M Software Development series. It focuses on the AMBA AXI protocol in modern SoC interconnects. The protocol is critical but often misunderstood.

Engineers often define performance in terms of compute: faster cores, higher clock speeds, and more parallelism. But even the fastest processor can be limited by inefficient data movement.

Why this course matters

In modern SoCs, performance depends on how data moves as much as how fast it is processed. Interconnect behaviour affects latency, throughput, ordering, and correctness. The underlying protocol defines these properties. 

This course explains how AXI works in real systems. You can use this knowledge to interpret behaviour, identify issues, and make better design decisions. 

Enter AXI

How do you achieve efficient and correct data movement in practice? 

The AMBA AXI (Advanced eXtensible Interface) protocol underpins high-performance communication in many modern SoCs. 

You will learn how transactions flow, how channels operate. You will also learnhow ordering and atomic behaviour impact correctness and performance. 

Build confidence in how your system moves data

If you have ever looked at a waveform or specification and thought, “I get the basics, but I am not fully confident interpreting this” - you are not alone. 

By the end of this course, you will be able to reason about AXI with confidence in real engineering contexts. This includes debugging behaviour, reviewing waveforms, and interpreting transactions in a design. 

Who this course is for

This course is for engineers who work with SoC architectures and software developers who interact with hardware. It is also for anyone who reviews waveforms, specifications, or debug data and wants a clearer understanding of AXI behaviour. 

Course overview

The course introduces AXI from first principles. It then explains advanced protocol behaviour used in modern systems. 

• AMBA foundations : how AXI fits within the AMBA family 
• Transactions and data flow : how information moves through AXI 
• Channel signals : how control and data signals coordinate behaviour 
• Ordering and atomic accesses : how correctness is maintained in complex systems 
• Recent AXI updates : features that support modern system requirements 
• ACE-Lite (optional) : context for legacy and existing systems 

Full course details, including videos and assessments, are available on Coursera.

Ready to go deeper?

If you work with hardware platforms, low-level software, or system architecture and want to better understand data movement, this course is a solid place to start. 

Enroll now in AMBA AXI Protocols Overview