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

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

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?

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