Mico32, how good is it?

Even if I know exactly if and when, it's nothing that I can reveal on this 
public newsgroup.

Although I not that worried about the Mico32.
Most of MicroBlaze competition (and I also think that is the same for the 
other soft processor) is not other soft processor but rather standard 
processors.

I just trying to get enough good performance and features in the Microblaze.
Together with a low cost FPGA you can make a business case of replacing a 
standard processor with a soft processor inside the FPGA.
Of course the customer needs to have a FPGA in the product already so they 
are familiar with FPGA and the soft processor is only a delta-cost of the 
extra needed LUTs.

Customer totally unaware of FPGA are not very likely to in a new product 
start using FPGAs and at the same time start using soft processor.

G�ran

"Finn S. Nielsen" <removfinnstadel@tiscali.dk> wrote in message 
news:456cc5c9$0$179$157c6196@dreader1.cybercity.dk...
> So G&#4294967295;ran,
>
> When will it be ready ;-)
>
> Lattice is already talking about that a MMU is on it's way..
>
> Regards
>
> Finn
>
>
>
> "G&#4294967295;ran Bilski" <goran.bilski@xilinx.com> skrev i en meddelelse 
> news:ekgq4k$t8d2@cnn.xsj.xilinx.com...
>> Just one thing, MicroBlaze can of course have a MMU.
>> Wonder what the idea this it's impossible come from?
>>
>> G&#4294967295;ran Bilski
>>
>> <burn.sir@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>> news:1164647777.560172.119220@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>> Thank you for your answer Jon,
>>>
>>>
>>> The JTAG problem was expected, and is easy to fix (write your own JTAG
>>> block). Regarding the MMU, well, I have heard the MB cannot be modified
>>> to include a MMU, is the same true for Mico32?
>>>
>>>
>>> The reason that I posted my previous questions in the first place was
>>> that if you synthesize a Mico32 project with, say, Quartus II you will
>>> notice that it cant fit in _any_ Cyclone II devices. The reason is that
>>> the lm32_ram block is designed in such way that the Quartus synthesizer
>>> cannot infer MK4 blocks...
>>>
>>>
>>> So my question to the list: has _anyone_ tried this CPU on Altera
>>> devices?
>>>
>>>
>>> regards, burns (still waiting for my ECP2M kit)
>>>
>
> 

G=F6ran Bilski schrieb:

> Even if I know exactly if and when, it's nothing that I can reveal on this
> public newsgroup.
>
> Although I not that worried about the Mico32.
> Most of MicroBlaze competition (and I also think that is the same for the
> other soft processor) is not other soft processor but rather standard
> processors.
>
> I just trying to get enough good performance and features in the Microbla=
ze.
> Together with a low cost FPGA you can make a business case of replacing a
> standard processor with a soft processor inside the FPGA.
> Of course the customer needs to have a FPGA in the product already so they
> are familiar with FPGA and the soft processor is only a delta-cost of the
> extra needed LUTs.
>
> Customer totally unaware of FPGA are not very likely to in a new product
> start using FPGAs and at the same time start using soft processor.
>
> G=F6ran
>
G=F6ran,

there defenetly are non-FPGA aware customers using FPGA -softcore
CPUs and I think there will be more and more.

Of course if there will be no more low cost large FPGAs from Xilinx
then those customers are likely to use either Lattice ECP/M or
Cyclone-3.

Because smallest ECPM has more onchip memory than largest Spartan-3A !!

I still hope Spartan-4 will not exclude large devices as 3e and 3a do

This (SW people using FPGA softcore) may however be rather
disappointing experience, as it is sometimes hard to explain the
benefits of the softcore, specially if it lacks MMU

Antti

G=F6ran Bilski wrote:
> Just one thing, MicroBlaze can of course have a MMU.
> Wonder what the idea this it's impossible come from?

I actually picked that up here in the NG.

Anyway, since you obviously know more about MB than the random NG
posters, I take it that it can be done