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Nios (computer Processor)
Nios was Altera's first configurable 16-bit embedded soft processor for its FPGA product-line. It was subsequently replaced by the 32-bit Nios II. See also * LatticeMico8 * LatticeMico32 * MicroBlaze * PicoBlaze PicoBlaze is the designation of a series of three free soft processor cores from Xilinx for use in their FPGA and CPLD products. They are based on an 8-bit RISC architecture and can reach speeds up to 100 MIPS on the Virtex 4 FPGA's family. Th ... References Soft microprocessors {{Microcompu-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altera
Altera Corporation is a manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs) headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by Intel in 2015 before becoming independent once again in 2025 as a company focused on development of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology and system on a chip FPGAs. Early history The company was founded in 1983 by semiconductor veterans Robert Hartmann, Paul Newhagen, James Sansbury, and Michael Magranet with $1,300,000 in seed money. The name of the company was a play on "alterable", the type of chips the company created. The founders selected Rodney Smith to be the company's first CEO. In 1988, Altera became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO). Products FPGAs The main product lines from Altera are the Agilex FPGA product lines, and their predecessors: the high-end Stratix series, mid-range Arria series, and lower-cost Cyclone series; as well as the MAX series non-volatile FPGAs. Semicond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soft Processor
A soft microprocessor (also called softcore microprocessor or a soft processor) is a microprocessor core that can be wholly implemented using logic synthesis. It can be implemented via different semiconductor devices containing programmable logic (e.g., FPGA, CPLD), including both high-end and commodity variations. Most systems, if they use a soft processor at all, only use a single soft processor. However, a few designers tile as many soft cores onto an FPGA as will fit. In those multi-core systems, rarely used resources can be shared between all the cores in a cluster. While many people put exactly one soft microprocessor on a FPGA, a sufficiently large FPGA can hold two or more soft microprocessors, resulting in a multi-core processor. The number of soft processors on a single FPGA is limited only by the size of the FPGA. Some people have put dozens or hundreds of soft microprocessors on a single FPGA. This is one way to implement massive parallelism in computing and can like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FPGA
A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a type of configurable integrated circuit that can be repeatedly programmed after manufacturing. FPGAs are a subset of logic devices referred to as programmable logic devices (PLDs). They consist of an array of programmable logic device, programmable logic block, logic blocks with a connecting grid, that can be configured "in the field" to interconnect with other logic blocks to perform various digital functions. FPGAs are often used in limited (low) quantity production of custom-made products, and in research and development, where the higher cost of individual FPGAs is not as important, and where creating and manufacturing a custom circuit would not be feasible. Other applications for FPGAs include the telecommunications, automotive, aerospace, and industrial sectors, which benefit from their flexibility, high signal processing speed, and parallel processing abilities. A FPGA configuration is generally written using a hardware descr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nios II
Nios II is a 32-bit embedded processor architecture designed specifically for the Altera family of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) integrated circuits. Nios II incorporates many enhancements over the original Nios architecture, making it more suitable for a wider range of embedded computing applications, from digital signal processing (DSP) to system-control. Nios II is a successor to Altera's first configurable 16-bit embedded processor Nios, introduced in 2000. Intel announced the discontinuation of Nios II in 2023, with its successor being Nios V, based on the RISC-V architecture. Key features Like the original Nios, the Nios II architecture is a RISC soft-core architecture which is implemented entirely in the programmable logic and memory blocks of Altera FPGAs. Unlike its predecessor it is a full 32-bit design: * 32 general-purpose 32-bit registers, * Full 32-bit instruction set, data path, and address space, * Single-instruction 32 × 32 multiply and divide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LatticeMico8
The LatticeMico8 is an 8-bit microcontroller reduced instruction set computer (RISC) soft processor core optimized for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and crossover programmable logic device architecture from Lattice Semiconductor. Combining a full 18-bit wide instruction set with 32 general purpose registers, the LatticeMico8 is a flexible Verilog reference design suitable for a wide variety of markets, including communications, consumer, computer, medical, industrial, and automotive. The core consumes minimal device resources, less than 200 lookup tables (LUTs) in the smallest configuration, while maintaining a broad feature set. The LatticeMico8 is licensed under a new free (IP) core license, the first such license offered by any FPGA supplier. The main benefits of using the IP core are greater flexibility, improved portability, and no cost. This new agreement provides some of the benefits of standard open-source license Open-source licenses are software licenses ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LatticeMico32
LatticeMico32 is a 32-bit microprocessor reduced instruction set computer (RISC) soft core from Lattice Semiconductor optimized for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It uses a Harvard architecture, so the instruction and data buses are separate. Bus arbitration logic can be used to combine the two buses, if desired. LatticeMico32 is licensed under a free (IP) core license. This means that the Mico32 is not restricted to Lattice FPGAs, and can be legally used on any host architecture (FPGA, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or software emulation such as QEMU). It is possible to embed a LatticeMico32 core into Xilinx and Altera FPGAs, in addition to the Lattice Semiconductor parts the LatticeMico32 was developed for. AMD PowerTune uses LatticeMico32. The CPU core and the development toolchain are available as source-code, allowing third parties to implement changes to the processor architecture. Features * RISC load/store architecture * 32-bit data path * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PicoBlaze
PicoBlaze is the designation of a series of three free soft processor cores from Xilinx for use in their FPGA and CPLD products. They are based on an 8-bit RISC architecture and can reach speeds up to 100 MIPS on the Virtex 4 FPGA's family. The processors have an 8-bit address and data port for access to a wide range of peripherals. The license of the cores allows their free use, albeit only on Xilinx devices, and they come with development tools. Third-party tools are available from Mediatronix and others. Also PacoBlaze, a behavioral and device independent implementation of the cores exists and is released under the BSD License. The PauloBlaze is an open source VHDL implementation under the Apache License. The PicoBlaze design was originally named KCPSM which stands for "Constant(K) Coded Programmable State Machine" (formerly "Ken Chapman's PSM"). Ken Chapman was the Xilinx systems designer who devised and implemented the microcontroller. Instantiation When instantiating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
