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Xilinx vs Altera / Microblaze vs Nios???

Started by Mats Brorsson December 14, 2004


We are in the process of selecting an FPGA board for a series of
laborations in courses ranging from computer engineering, embedded
software development to VHDL design, SoC architectures and operating
systems.

We are trying to evaluate Xilinx vs Altera boards and the Microblaze
vs Nios II processors against each other. My first own overall
impression is:

* Xilinx is more often used in universities than Altera
* Altera's development tools seems to be a little more intuitive
than Xilinx'
* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
custom instructions (is this true)
* Both Altera and Xilinx can offer about the same IP-cores to
supplement the soft cores
* uCLinux is ported for both Microblaze and NiosII

Any comments on which one to prefer and why? We have previously been
using Altera but are in a position to switch to Xilinx now if needed.

I also need suggestions on development board to choose.

I am overwhelmed with the large number of development boards
available for both Altera's and Xilinx' devices. We'd need a board
with the following capabilities:
* a device that could host a design with 4 soft-cores and some
peripherals
* some DRAM (>4 Mbyte)
* some useful I/O-connections
(e.g. Ethernet, USB, PS/2, VGA)
* some basic I/O devices
(e.g. LEDS, buttons and DIP-switches)

Any suggestions?

Sincerely

Mats Brorsson



Hej Mats,

Since I'm the architect and designer behind MicroBlaze, I might be a
little biased in my questions.

See below.

MVH
Gan Bilski

Mats Brorsson wrote:

>
>We are in the process of selecting an FPGA board for a series of
>laborations in courses ranging from computer engineering, embedded
>software development to VHDL design, SoC architectures and operating
>systems.
>
>We are trying to evaluate Xilinx vs Altera boards and the Microblaze
>vs Nios II processors against each other. My first own overall
>impression is:
>
>* Xilinx is more often used in universities than Altera
Xilinx is also used by more customers.

>* Altera's development tools seems to be a little more intuitive
>than Xilinx'
We are on a tight race on this subject and we do something better than
they and they do something better than us.

>* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
>However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
>custom instructions (is this true)
MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer functions
which is far more powerful than custom instructions.

>* Both Altera and Xilinx can offer about the same IP-cores to
>supplement the soft cores
We have far more IP cores than what Altera deliver for NIOS

>* uCLinux is ported for both Microblaze and NiosII >
True.

>Any comments on which one to prefer and why? We have previously been
>using Altera but are in a position to switch to Xilinx now if needed.
>
>I also need suggestions on development board to choose. >
There is many boards available but it depends on your needs and your
cost requirement.
We sell a Spartan3 board for $99 which can be used for MicroBlaze designs.

>I am overwhelmed with the large number of development boards
>available for both Altera's and Xilinx' devices. We'd need a board
>with the following capabilities:
>* a device that could host a design with 4 soft-cores and some
>peripherals
>* some DRAM (>4 Mbyte)
>* some useful I/O-connections
> (e.g. Ethernet, USB, PS/2, VGA)
>* some basic I/O devices
> (e.g. LEDS, buttons and DIP-switches)
There are just to many boards that fits this requirement from many
different companies.
Xilinx ML401 board is a nice board which fits all your needs and it also
using our latest FPGA family Virtex4.

>Any suggestions?
>
>Sincerely
>
>Mats Brorsson >
>
>To post a message, send it to:
>To unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
>Yahoo! Groups Links >




Here is the link to the ML401 board.

http://www.xilinx.com/xlnx/xebiz/designResources/ip_product_details.jsp?key=HW-V4-ML401-USA&iLanguageID=1

Gan

Gan Bilski wrote:

>Hej Mats,
>
>Since I'm the architect and designer behind MicroBlaze, I might be a
>little biased in my questions.
>
>See below.
>
>MVH
>Gan Bilski
>
>Mats Brorsson wrote: >
>>We are in the process of selecting an FPGA board for a series of
>>laborations in courses ranging from computer engineering, embedded
>>software development to VHDL design, SoC architectures and operating
>>systems.
>>
>>We are trying to evaluate Xilinx vs Altera boards and the Microblaze
>>vs Nios II processors against each other. My first own overall
>>impression is:
>>
>>* Xilinx is more often used in universities than Altera
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Xilinx is also used by more customers. >
>>* Altera's development tools seems to be a little more intuitive
>>than Xilinx'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>We are on a tight race on this subject and we do something better than
>they and they do something better than us. >
>>* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
>>However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
>>custom instructions (is this true)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer functions
>which is far more powerful than custom instructions. >
>>* Both Altera and Xilinx can offer about the same IP-cores to
>>supplement the soft cores
>>
>>
>>
>>
>We have far more IP cores than what Altera deliver for NIOS >
>>* uCLinux is ported for both Microblaze and NiosII
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>True. >
>>Any comments on which one to prefer and why? We have previously been
>>using Altera but are in a position to switch to Xilinx now if needed.
>>
>>I also need suggestions on development board to choose.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>There is many boards available but it depends on your needs and your
>cost requirement.
>We sell a Spartan3 board for $99 which can be used for MicroBlaze designs. >
>>I am overwhelmed with the large number of development boards
>>available for both Altera's and Xilinx' devices. We'd need a board
>>with the following capabilities:
>>* a device that could host a design with 4 soft-cores and some
>>peripherals
>>* some DRAM (>4 Mbyte)
>>* some useful I/O-connections
>> (e.g. Ethernet, USB, PS/2, VGA)
>>* some basic I/O devices
>> (e.g. LEDS, buttons and DIP-switches)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>There are just to many boards that fits this requirement from many
>different companies.
>Xilinx ML401 board is a nice board which fits all your needs and it also
>using our latest FPGA family Virtex4. >
>>Any suggestions?
>>
>>Sincerely
>>
>>Mats Brorsson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>To post a message, send it to:
>>To unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
>>Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> >To post a message, send it to:
>To unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
>Yahoo! Groups Links >




Gan or anyone,

Some questions are enclosed. Please note that I am a Xilinx customer
and am a bit biased towards Xilinx vs other companies.

>>* Altera's development tools seems to be a little more intuitive
>>than Xilinx'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>We are on a tight race on this subject and we do something better than
>they and they do something better than us. >
What types of things, specifically, does Altera do in their tools
that is more intuitive than Xilinx?

What types of things do Xilinx do that are better than Altera's tools? >>* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
>>However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
>>custom instructions (is this true)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer functions
>which is far more powerful than custom instructions. >
What is a 'customer function' and why is it better to be able to do
'customer functions' than extend the instruction set. >>I am overwhelmed with the large number of development boards
>>available for both Altera's and Xilinx' devices. We'd need a board
>>with the following capabilities:
>>* a device that could host a design with 4 soft-cores and some
>>peripherals
>>* some DRAM (>4 Mbyte)
>>* some useful I/O-connections
>> (e.g. Ethernet, USB, PS/2, VGA)
>>* some basic I/O devices
>> (e.g. LEDS, buttons and DIP-switches)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>There are just to many boards that fits this requirement from many
>different companies.
>Xilinx ML401 board is a nice board which fits all your needs and it also
>using our latest FPGA family Virtex4. >
Does the free webpack ISE tool work with this board?

What tool/tools are required if I purchased this board? Thank you,
Richard Newman




Hello,

> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: Gan Bilski [mailto:]
> Enviado el: martes, 14 de diciembre de 2004 20:24
> Para:
> Asunto: Re: [fpga-cpu] Xilinx vs Altera / Microblaze vs Nios???
>
> > >* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
> >However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
> >custom instructions (is this true)
> >
> >
> MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer functions
> which is far more powerful than custom instructions.

Please, can you explain further what do you want to say with "customer functions"?

As far as I know, the ways to "expand" Microblaze is either a custom OPB-connected hardware or hardware attached to a superlink FIFO. Is this correct? Although that's valid for most applications I think that the "custom opcodes" is really a powerful function. Best regards,

Javier Basilio Pez Ramas
GECOM sensors
INDRA Sistemas, S.A.




At 03:22 AM 12/15/2004, you wrote: >Gan or anyone,
>
> What types of things, specifically, does Altera do in their tools
>that is more intuitive than Xilinx?

I use both toolsets and I will say that the Altera tools have a more
intuitive feel at the GUI. I can't put my finger on any one thing, but I
know I learned my way around their menus and controls much more easily.

One thing I think is easier to use is viewing the timing analysis
results. You can open a critical path in a chip viewer, the paths will all
the logic will be highlighted and you can even see all the individual
routing delays on the segments.

One area where they both suck is in the help files. All too often when you
look up a e.g. the "foobar" selection in a dialog box, it tells you that it
allows you to select the foobar option. I bloody well know what a dialog
box does, I wanted to know what the foobar option is and why I should care
about it!!! > What types of things do Xilinx do that are better than Altera's tools?

I think it is easier to control the Xilinx tools if you are trying to
optimize your design. The Xilinx floorplanner is a big help and the whole
RLOC thing is very good. I don't think Altera has anything remotely like
RLOCs. > >MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer functions
> >which is far more powerful than custom instructions.
> >
> >
> >
> What is a 'customer function' and why is it better to be able to do
>'customer functions' than extend the instruction set.

I believe you can add your own hardware and make it part of the CPU and
instruction set. > >There are just to many boards that fits this requirement from many
> >different companies.
> >Xilinx ML401 board is a nice board which fits all your needs and it also
> >using our latest FPGA family Virtex4.
> >
> >
> >
> Does the free webpack ISE tool work with this board?

That purely depends on the chip on the board. Check on the Xilinx web site
to see if the webpack tools support that chip.
Rick Collins
Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAX


Hi,

The custom function is attaching a full function on the FSL (fifo)
channels that MicroBlaze has.

Custom instruction has the drawback that you can only have 2 operands
and 1 result which minimize the usage of it.
Most useful instruction are already covered by the ISA.

One example that I use to demonstrate this is to optimize a idct
function that is needed for a jpeg decoder.
If you run a jpeg decoder, the idct function will take most of the CPU
cycles,
Further more the idct function is a loop in a loop function as many DSP
functions are.
The idct function has 8 inputs and 8 outputs and uses 64 constants for
the calculation.
By examine the assembler output from the compiler and using custom
instructions, you can create your own super MAC instructions which not
only does a MAC but also contains the whole constant table plus
autoincrement the pointer into the constant table.
If you get this instruction to execute in 1 clock cycle, you have
increase the performance of the idct function with 90% which is not a
bad improvement.

But if you take the FSL approach you place the WHOLE idct function into
HW and just pass the parameters through the FIFO and receive the results
through the FIFO. This will improve the performance 1010% which is 7x
faster than the custom instruction.
WHY?
Because the whole function is placed in HW, you can collapse both loops
and there is where all the performance gain is.
But in order to collapse the loops, you have now 8 inputs and 8 outputs
which is hard to specify in a custom instruction.

The custom instruction sounds nice but doesn't really give you that much
gain. The FSL has potential of improving your application with 10x or 100x.

Gan

Perez Ramas, Javier Basilio wrote:

> Hello, >
>>-----Mensaje original-----
>>De: Gan Bilski [mailto:]
>>Enviado el: martes, 14 de diciembre de 2004 20:24
>>Para:
>>Asunto: Re: [fpga-cpu] Xilinx vs Altera / Microblaze vs Nios???
>>
>>
>>
>>>>* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
>>>custom instructions (is this true)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer functions
>>which is far more powerful than custom instructions.
>>
>>
>
> Please, can you explain further what do you want to say with "customer functions"?
>
> As far as I know, the ways to "expand" Microblaze is either a custom OPB-connected hardware or hardware attached to a superlink FIFO. Is this correct? Although that's valid for most applications I think that the "custom opcodes" is really a powerful function. > Best regards,
>
> Javier Basilio Pez Ramas
> GECOM sensors
> INDRA Sistemas, S.A. >To post a message, send it to:
>To unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
>Yahoo! Groups Links >





Mats,

As the Nios II architect and designer, I'm excited that you are
interested in using a soft-core FPGA processor.
I wish I had one of these to play with when I was in university.

I'll give you my opinions but also encourage you to contact Mike
Phipps ().
He is in charge of our university program and is open to granting
development boards and tools to universities.

I also encourage you to to check out Nios Forum (www.niosforum.com).
This is the main user forum for Nios and Nios II users (mostly Nios
II).
It is on a web site sponsored by Altera but the content is not
controlled by Altera.

As for Nios II vs. Microblaze, both are excellent implementations of
32-bit RISC processors. Given your educational perspective,
comparisons of performance and/or size are probably not your most
important consideration. The Nios II custom instruction facility is
quite easy to use and very powerful. Custom instructions can either
be purely combinatorial or multicycle. I could easily imagine a lab
where students analyze an algorithm and create custom instructions to
accelerate it. You can call custom instructions from assembly code
or from C-code (they look like functions). You could also have
students create a custom coprocessor with its own Avalon master
interface to get larger performance gains albeit for more design
effort.

If you want students to analyze or even modify the Nios II code, rest
assured that it is just standard VHDL/Verilog; we don't use any hand-
coded lookup table masks.
We rely on Quartus synthesis to produce the programming file for the
FPGA.

As for a difference in tools, I believe we have the advantage. Our
main tools are Quartus, SOPC Builder, Nios II IDE, and the compiler
toolchain. SOPC Builder uses the Avalon interconnect to connect SOPC
Builder components including Nios II. Avalon was designed
specifically for the characteristics of FPGAs. SOPC Builder and Nios
II developed by the same Altera team and work very well together.
The IDE is based on the open source Eclipse framework and the
compiler toolchain is based on the open source gcc tools.

Besides uCLinux, Nios II also has support for the eCos and uCOS-II
(Microtronix) operating systems. In fact, the Nios II kit comes
bundled with uCOS-II and comes with the associated book. All of these
operating systems include source code. There are other operating
systems available but I figure these are the most interesting to
educational users.

As for your board needs, any of our Cyclone or Stratix Nios
development boards should satisfy your requirements. Our smallest
board has a 10,000 LE Stratix device which can easily accomodate 4
Nios II CPUs and peripherals (e.g. sdram controller, pio, uart,
timer, ethernet). There are three versions of the Nios II core
ranging from an economy version that is 600 LEs to a high-performance
version that is 1800 LEs.

I hope you find this information useful.

James Ball

--- In , "Mats Brorsson" <matsbror@i...>
wrote:
>
>
> We are in the process of selecting an FPGA board for a series of
> laborations in courses ranging from computer engineering, embedded
> software development to VHDL design, SoC architectures and
operating
> systems.
>
> We are trying to evaluate Xilinx vs Altera boards and the
Microblaze
> vs Nios II processors against each other. My first own overall
> impression is:
>
> * Xilinx is more often used in universities than Altera
> * Altera's development tools seems to be a little more intuitive
> than Xilinx'
> * Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
> However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
> custom instructions (is this true)
> * Both Altera and Xilinx can offer about the same IP-cores to
> supplement the soft cores
> * uCLinux is ported for both Microblaze and NiosII
>
> Any comments on which one to prefer and why? We have previously
been
> using Altera but are in a position to switch to Xilinx now if
needed.
>
> I also need suggestions on development board to choose.
>
> I am overwhelmed with the large number of development boards
> available for both Altera's and Xilinx' devices. We'd need a board
> with the following capabilities:
> * a device that could host a design with 4 soft-cores and some
> peripherals
> * some DRAM (>4 Mbyte)
> * some useful I/O-connections
> (e.g. Ethernet, USB, PS/2, VGA)
> * some basic I/O devices
> (e.g. LEDS, buttons and DIP-switches)
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Sincerely
>
> Mats Brorsson



Mats and all,

as this discussion is going more in the direction of soft-core processors
I would like to add another option:

JOP: a Java processor soft-core for FPGAs: http://www.jopdesign.com/

With this processor you can postbone your decision about A vs. X
because it runns on both (e.g. Cyclone, Spartan-3). However, the design
runns faster on the Cyclone than on the Spartan-3 (100MHz vs. 82MHz).

This processor is open-source (all VHDL and Java sources are on the
website) and free for educational purpose. JOP is perhaps more
'university-compatible' than Nios and MicroBlaze, as it was developed as
part of a PhD thesis. There are several papers available about JOP.
JOP is already used at universities for education and research.

Martin ----- Original Message -----
From: "James" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 11:30 PM
Subject: [fpga-cpu] Re: Xilinx vs Altera / Microblaze vs Nios??? >
>
> Mats,
>
> As the Nios II architect and designer, I'm excited that you are
> interested in using a soft-core FPGA processor.
> I wish I had one of these to play with when I was in university.
>
> I'll give you my opinions but also encourage you to contact Mike
> Phipps ().
> He is in charge of our university program and is open to granting
> development boards and tools to universities.
>
> I also encourage you to to check out Nios Forum (www.niosforum.com).
> This is the main user forum for Nios and Nios II users (mostly Nios
> II).
> It is on a web site sponsored by Altera but the content is not
> controlled by Altera.
>
> As for Nios II vs. Microblaze, both are excellent implementations of
> 32-bit RISC processors. Given your educational perspective,
> comparisons of performance and/or size are probably not your most
> important consideration. The Nios II custom instruction facility is
> quite easy to use and very powerful. Custom instructions can either
> be purely combinatorial or multicycle. I could easily imagine a lab
> where students analyze an algorithm and create custom instructions to
> accelerate it. You can call custom instructions from assembly code
> or from C-code (they look like functions). You could also have
> students create a custom coprocessor with its own Avalon master
> interface to get larger performance gains albeit for more design
> effort.
>
> If you want students to analyze or even modify the Nios II code, rest
> assured that it is just standard VHDL/Verilog; we don't use any hand-
> coded lookup table masks.
> We rely on Quartus synthesis to produce the programming file for the
> FPGA.
>
> As for a difference in tools, I believe we have the advantage. Our
> main tools are Quartus, SOPC Builder, Nios II IDE, and the compiler
> toolchain. SOPC Builder uses the Avalon interconnect to connect SOPC
> Builder components including Nios II. Avalon was designed
> specifically for the characteristics of FPGAs. SOPC Builder and Nios
> II developed by the same Altera team and work very well together.
> The IDE is based on the open source Eclipse framework and the
> compiler toolchain is based on the open source gcc tools.
>
> Besides uCLinux, Nios II also has support for the eCos and uCOS-II
> (Microtronix) operating systems. In fact, the Nios II kit comes
> bundled with uCOS-II and comes with the associated book. All of these
> operating systems include source code. There are other operating
> systems available but I figure these are the most interesting to
> educational users.
>
> As for your board needs, any of our Cyclone or Stratix Nios
> development boards should satisfy your requirements. Our smallest
> board has a 10,000 LE Stratix device which can easily accomodate 4
> Nios II CPUs and peripherals (e.g. sdram controller, pio, uart,
> timer, ethernet). There are three versions of the Nios II core
> ranging from an economy version that is 600 LEs to a high-performance
> version that is 1800 LEs.
>
> I hope you find this information useful.
>
> James Ball
>
> --- In , "Mats Brorsson" <matsbror@i...>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> We are in the process of selecting an FPGA board for a series of
>> laborations in courses ranging from computer engineering, embedded
>> software development to VHDL design, SoC architectures and
> operating
>> systems.
>>
>> We are trying to evaluate Xilinx vs Altera boards and the
> Microblaze
>> vs Nios II processors against each other. My first own overall
>> impression is:
>>
>> * Xilinx is more often used in universities than Altera
>> * Altera's development tools seems to be a little more intuitive
>> than Xilinx'
>> * Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
>> However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot handle
>> custom instructions (is this true)
>> * Both Altera and Xilinx can offer about the same IP-cores to
>> supplement the soft cores
>> * uCLinux is ported for both Microblaze and NiosII
>>
>> Any comments on which one to prefer and why? We have previously
> been
>> using Altera but are in a position to switch to Xilinx now if
> needed.
>>
>> I also need suggestions on development board to choose.
>>
>> I am overwhelmed with the large number of development boards
>> available for both Altera's and Xilinx' devices. We'd need a board
>> with the following capabilities:
>> * a device that could host a design with 4 soft-cores and some
>> peripherals
>> * some DRAM (>4 Mbyte)
>> * some useful I/O-connections
>> (e.g. Ethernet, USB, PS/2, VGA)
>> * some basic I/O devices
>> (e.g. LEDS, buttons and DIP-switches)
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> Sincerely
>>
>> Mats Brorsson > To post a message, send it to:
> To unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
> Yahoo! Groups Links >
>





In Nios II, I'd implement the IDCT as a coprocessor. The coprocessor
could connect to the Nios II CPU using custom instructions or using
Avalon (the on-chip interconnect fabric).

In the custom instruction version, you have Nios II load the source
operands from memory, use a custom instruction to transfer two 32-bit
operands per cycle to the coprocessor, use a custom instruction to
start the operation, use a custom instruction to transfer one 32-bit
result value per cycle, and then use Nios II store instructions to
save the results to memory. You have to do the same thing with
Microblaze but the FSLs can only transfer one 32-bit value every
other cycle so Nios II would be significantly faster.

However, if you really want the best performance, I'd make the IDCT
its own SOPC Builder component with an Avalon master interface. Think
of it as an intelligent DMA. Instead of having Nios II move around
source and result values, Nios II just provides the memory addresses
to the coprocessor (either through a custom instruction or an Avalon
slave interface) and then waits for it to complete. The IDCT reads
the source operands from memory, performs the computation, and writes
back the result. This provides the best speedup.

+james+

--- In , Gan Bilski <goran.bilski@x> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The custom function is attaching a full function on the FSL (fifo)
> channels that MicroBlaze has.
>
> Custom instruction has the drawback that you can only have 2
operands
> and 1 result which minimize the usage of it.
> Most useful instruction are already covered by the ISA.
>
> One example that I use to demonstrate this is to optimize a idct
> function that is needed for a jpeg decoder.
> If you run a jpeg decoder, the idct function will take most of the
CPU
> cycles,
> Further more the idct function is a loop in a loop function as many
DSP
> functions are.
> The idct function has 8 inputs and 8 outputs and uses 64 constants
for
> the calculation.
> By examine the assembler output from the compiler and using custom
> instructions, you can create your own super MAC instructions which
not
> only does a MAC but also contains the whole constant table plus
> autoincrement the pointer into the constant table.
> If you get this instruction to execute in 1 clock cycle, you have
> increase the performance of the idct function with 90% which is not
a
> bad improvement.
>
> But if you take the FSL approach you place the WHOLE idct function
into
> HW and just pass the parameters through the FIFO and receive the
results
> through the FIFO. This will improve the performance 1010% which is
7x
> faster than the custom instruction.
> WHY?
> Because the whole function is placed in HW, you can collapse both
loops
> and there is where all the performance gain is.
> But in order to collapse the loops, you have now 8 inputs and 8
outputs
> which is hard to specify in a custom instruction.
>
> The custom instruction sounds nice but doesn't really give you that
much
> gain. The FSL has potential of improving your application with 10x
or 100x.
>
> Gan
>
> Perez Ramas, Javier Basilio wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> >
> >
> >>-----Mensaje original-----
> >>De: Gan Bilski [mailto:goran.bilski@x...]
> >>Enviado el: martes, 14 de diciembre de 2004 20:24
> >>Para:
> >>Asunto: Re: [fpga-cpu] Xilinx vs Altera / Microblaze vs Nios???
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>>* Nios II and Microblaze are roughly of the same architecture.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>However, Nios II is more customizable and Microblaze cannot
handle
> >>>custom instructions (is this true)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>MicroBlaze can do much more by allowing you to do customer
functions
> >>which is far more powerful than custom instructions.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Please, can you explain further what do you want to say
with "customer functions"?
> >
> > As far as I know, the ways to "expand" Microblaze is either
a custom OPB-connected hardware or hardware attached to a superlink
FIFO. Is this correct? Although that's valid for most applications I
think that the "custom opcodes" is really a powerful function.
> >
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Javier Basilio Pez Ramas
> > GECOM sensors
> > INDRA Sistemas, S.A.
> >
> >
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