MicroFpga = program an FPGA as it would be a MCU !

fpga snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com schrieb:

Hi John,

thanks for cute words! I also hope it to be fun for many useage scenarios as well.

The hardware features that are available largely depend on a concept xxxxx (no name yet) that is currently being developed and tested. MicroFpga is fun without xxxxx also, but the useability of hard peripheral IP cores is very limited. xxxxx will allow funtions like pwm, deltasigma dac, VGA, etc to be assigned to any IO pin of the FPGA (yes any pin of given package) under pure software control. Here are of course also compromises and restrictions in place depending the package and device selection, but there is way more fun in.

More details to follow soon.

Antti

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Antti
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snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com schrieb:

Zoltan,

you are absolutly right! it is really a simple concept.

Antti

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Antti

Mike Harrison schrieb:

peripheral modules like

MCUs with wierd

transmitters, two receivers,

in-between product that could

Mike,

the list of peripherals you mentioned will be possible on Standard MicroFpga's (eg no customization) starting some 'resource' level, e.g. if a 32 Bit RISC takes below 50% then the rest of the FPGA will be filled with peripherals. One difference with MCU's is the fact that all I/Os are treated a the same. There will be some limitations what hw ip cores can be routed to I/Os at any given time, but there are usually no dedicated pins at all (depending FPGA family being used there are exceptions), that is if 8 Channel PWM block exists in an FPGA with 489 pins then any 8 pins of the available 489 can be used as PWM outputs :)

Cheers, Antti

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Antti

peripheral modules like

need MCUs with wierd

transmitters, two receivers,

in-between product that could

Sounds great, but I don't see how that would be done. If you are not using place and route tools, how can you change the IO assignments? If this is just another MCU in an FPGA, with no option of customizing the code to add special logic or peripherals, how is it utilizing the FPGA in any way other than as a very expensive and power hungry version of a CPU?

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rickman

rickman schrieb:

peripheral modules like

need MCUs with wierd

transmitters, two receivers,

in-between product that could

well I cant change assigments so all IO are pre-assigned as GP(n), where n =0..max_pins-1

there obviosly is something between CPU peripherals and GP(n)

and of course there are severe restrictions what can be done and what not, but the way I see the concept amazing things can be done, sure the nice features would require relativly large FPGA to really shine, but hey the FPGA prices are dropping all the time!

Antti

Reply to
Antti

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