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Open-source CPU-core for standard-cell ASIC?

Forgive me if this topic has been beaten to death. Are there any *production-quality* open-source embedded CPU cores, that are suitable for a standard-cell (0.18u) ASIC implementation?

I see lots of CPU-projects on

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some with obviously amateurish documentation/legal-disclaimers ("I copied company X's CPU, so I don't know you can legally use my core in your project, enjoy!")

In my limited search (opencores.org and basic google search), I've only found a handful of candidates:

32-bit: OpenRISC 1000 (from opencores.org) Leon2/3 SPARC
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8-bit/16-bit: many 805x clones a Z80 clone on

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various PIC micro-controller clones (of questionable legality...)

From what I can tell, Leon2/3 is the most robust candidate (SPARC V8 certified), and since it implements a well-known ISA, commercial devtools can target it. (Is that right?)

OpenRISC 1000 is an original RISC ISA, with gcc/gdb port. A few press releases suggest it's been used in commercial ASICs.

What about the 8-bit and 16-bit cores?

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Sun Open-Sourced the SPARC T1, with full verilog source, compiler, simulation files, the works. I beleive the processor is quite advanced with multiple cores and multi-threading all options. I believe the latest version is more FPGA friendly, with lots of configurable options. This is all from memory, but there is more info here:

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Have Fun!

Reply to
John McGrath

You don't say what you need, but did you look at the Mico32 from Lattice?

That is opensource, and proven on their silicon, and others have compiled it onto X and A.

Maybe someone can give numbers for Mico32 on the Cyclone III ?

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

I should also mention pacoblaze

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and also the Mico8 from Lattice

and Eric5 (not open source, but is small and supported)

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-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Someone asked: "[..]

I see lots of CPU-projects on

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some with obviously amateurish documentation/legal-disclaimers ("I copied company X's CPU, so I don't know you can legally use my core in your project, enjoy!")

[..] Leon2/3 SPARC
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[..] a Z80 clone on
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[..] (of questionable legality...)"

You missed the Z80 clone for an Amstrad clone on

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"From what I can tell, Leon2/3 is the most robust candidate (SPARC V8 certified),"

Have you ever read the many problems people talk about on one of its Yahoo! email lists? Many are due to people not reading the documentation, but not all.

" and since it implements a well-known ISA, commercial devtools can target it. (Is that right?)

[..]"

Very expensive commercial tools do legally target Leon processors.

Reply to
Colin Paul Gloster

Are you implying that gcc targeting SPARC is not legal?

--
Steve Williams                "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
steve at icarus.com           But I have promises to keep,
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Reply to
Stephen Williams

I kind of agree with that.

Depends what you're looking for (what do you want to do with your this CPU?). I have my own core

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which is optimized for control applications. It can be an 8b core, 16b, 24b, 32b, etc.

Without more info I can not say if it's suitable for you.

-- mmihai

Reply to
mmihai

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