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Discussion Groups | FPGA-CPU | xr16vx in JHDL v1.0 is online

This list is for discussion of the design and implementation of field-programmable gate array based processors and integrated systems. It is also for discussion and community support of the XSOC Project (see http://www.fpgacpu.org/xsoc).

xr16vx in JHDL v1.0 is online - Mike Butts - Jun 30 15:16:00 2001


I've polished off the xr16vx microcontroller in JHDL, and
posted it, along with tools, tests and documentation:
http://www.easystreet.com/~mbutts/xr16vx_jhdl.html

xr16vx is a 16-bit microcontroller design for FPGAs, which I've
released as open source programming under the GPL. Including
memory, serial and parallel ports and a timer, it fits in only
29% of a Xilinx Spartan-II XC2S100-5, at up to 39 MHz.

xr16vxcpu implements the xr16 16-bit RISC instruction set
architecture of Jan Gray:
http://www.fpgacpu.org/xsoc/README.html
Jan's xsoc package includes an assembler and ANSI C compiler
for xr16 based on lcc. My xr16vxcpu runs at one cycle per
instruction, except taken branches and loads used next cycle.
It takes advantage of the dual-ported BlockRAM to fetch instructions
and data in parallel.

xr16vx is written in JHDL, a set of Java classes and tools for FPGA
design developed at BYU:
http://www.jhdl.org/release-latest/docs/overview/intro.html
In JHDL you do register-level design but without synthesis.
I've found JHDL a very satisfying development environment, and am
getting slightly better speed and area than I got in Verilog with
FPGA Express.

Since the xr16vx microcontroller is completely contained in the
FPGA, you can write a C program for xr16vx, init the BlockRAMs
with it in the EDIF file, and thus have the application built into
the bitstream, executing at power-up. I include some tools I wrote
to make doing this easy.

Thanks to Jan Gray's xsoc, BYU's JHDL and Xilinx WebPACK ISE, the
entire design flow for xr16vx is available on the Web at no cost.
I've developed xr16vx myself on my own time, because I love FPGAs
and I love CPU design. I hope students, experimenters, and anyone
on a limited budget will find xr16vx useful.

--Mike





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