Questions from a beginner...

"Enzo B." schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:ZQTFd.406761$ snipped-for-privacy@news3.tin.it...

Just do it. Setup a new project, add the files, compile. But if you want a powerfull uC in a Xilinx FPGA, you better go for the famous KCPSM (xapp213). Its a very nice thing, much faster than any 8051 clone and MUCH smaller!!!

Regards Falk

"Falk Brunner" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

No, you can't just do it with this 8051 core. It has some internal/external RAM/ROM modules that you will have to replace with BlockRAMs. Not hard to do, but you do say you are a beginner.

Also, this 8051 requires more LUTs than the XC3S200 has. You will need at least an XC3S400 unless you want to devote some time to optimization and floorplanning.

As suggested, using the Xilinx PicoBlaze is a better solution. But if you are truly just beginning with FPGAs, then I suggest you also take a look at

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Unless you have some real burning need for a micro in a fpga then i dont see the point of putting something like a 8052 into a fpga where you can buy off the shelf parts which run at 100Mhz and have inbuilt spi,i2c,ports etc. I can see a point if the 8052 core is redesigned to run as a single clock per instruction or uses some custom instruction set or some such . I have implemented a very simple 8052 core with some added such as a dedicated modulo arithmetic unit and 5 stage instruction pipeline, but it wasnt a beginers project.

Thanks for your replies. I've (recently) seen there isn't possible to compile the Oregano System's

8051 core with the ISE because it is written for another compiler. I think it's possible to use it on Xilinx devices, but not without modification. And I don't know how modify it.

As I've read, the PicoBlaze is a soft core written purposely for Xilinx FPGA devices : requires much lower resources and is faster if compared with another core. But how I can start to use it? In particular, what software tools I need? Exists a small evaluation kit (or similar)?

Another question : I've searched an 8051-compatible core because I have experience with 8051 & derivates, a C compiler, some routines, etc. and maybe (?) I can use this as a starting point. I haven't idea of how much can be hard to put an entire 8051 on a FPGA, but if this is more over my possibilities, can I start by putting only the cpu (with registers but without program ROM and data RAM) and adding an external program rom to the FPGA? Is this more simple?

Thank you for any suggestion.

Enzo

~ ~ ~

I haven't needs to do this, I would like to implement a microcontroller in a FPGA, for understanding the capabilities of these devices.

I know the fast 8052 derivates from Silicon labs : they are very fast and includes various peripherals, but if you need a very large number of I/O or a particular function (an IDE hdd interface port), a practical way to do this is to add a PLD or similar device to the microcontroller.

Currently I haven't to do this, I only want to... play a little.

p.s. I suppose you have written your fast 8052 core in VHDL, right? Do you know a book (for beginners!!) about this language?

Thank you.

Enzo

"Jezwold" ha scritto nel messaggio news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...

The Hamburg VHDL archive has several useful resources.

If you want more information on using the PicoBlaze core, Xilinx has an application that comes with the PicoBlaze. It is a UART RTC. Essentially it connects to your PC through a serial port and allows the PC to control a Real Time Clock in the FPGA. This outputs an alarm on one of the outputs.

There is another appnote at

The appnote is titled Circuit Cellar Appnote. This appnote goes over the design of a PicoBlaze system for controlling all the resources on Dulse Electronics' SEB3 board (i.e. SRAM, LEDs, pushbuttons, LCD, etc.), but can be easily adapted to your own board. The source code can also be downloaded. My suggestion would be to use one of these appnotes (Xilinx or Dulse Electronics) and modify them a bit at a time until you get used to them and then do your own design.

Note that the PicoBlaze is not programmable in C. It has a limitation of 1K instructions of code and is programmed in assembler.