I probably will use a full-blown 32-bit CPU in my next project. And I was thinking if I could use the Lattice Mico32 Unfortunately, I haven't had time to get familiar with this CPU yet. I know however that more than a few of you have been playing with it, so I am asking for your impression so far.
I will be very thankful if anyone can answer any of the following questions:
- What do you think of the CPU so far? How does it compare to the alternatives?
- In terms of size and speed, how does it compare to the competition?
- How good is the software support (GCC) and how well designed is the HAL and low-level library connection? How well is the Wishbone interface working in practice?
- If I plan to use a non-Lattice FPGA, would things work as smooth or will development become much more difficult?
- How does the area & speed change across FPGA families and vendors? I remember that Mico8 became noticeably larger when targeting Cyclone and Spartan FPGAs...
- Are any there any technical difficulties against porting Linux to this CPU? (just out of curiosity and completely unrelated to my project)
thank you in advance, burns