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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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14 years ago

Avalon discussion

Why do we say Avalon is "Interface", not "bus"?

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    Actually the two terms are often assumed to be equivalent in this forum.

    I believe in a ideal bus structure all devices are supposed to be connected in parallel and two masters can't use the bus in the same time.

    Avalon has instead a matrix structure with different paths connecting the devices and this avoids bus contention in most cases, making arbitration easier at the price of higher complexity.

    Moreover Avalon features both a Memory Mapped and a Streaming interface.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    Thank you!

    I get another idea, bus is an inter-architecture, which is for interconnection.However avalon support exporting the interface to off-chip peripherals. Strictly speaking avalon is "interface"!