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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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16 years ago

bemicro processor count

Anybody know how many of the generic nios II processors can fit onto the bemicro device. I was thinking about putting a couple processors on there, and I was wondering if someone had a general idea of the capabilities.

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  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    The BeMicro uses an EP3C16F256C8N. So the correct question is how many NIOS II processors can fit inside that device.

    Here is the information for the Cyclone III:

    http://www.altera.com/products/devices/cyclone3/overview/cy3-overview.html

    The device has ~15,408 logic elements

    Resource utilization for the NIOS II is best estimated using the NIOS II megawizard inside SoPC builder. However, this documents gives some info:

    http://www.altera.com/literature/ds/ds_nios2_perf.pdf

    So assume you are using the NIOS II/f implementation (~1800 logic elements). Theoretically you could fit 8 cores inside your Cyclone III. Now in reality there is a ton of other logic (Avalon interconnect fabric, SRAM cores, timers, and whatever else you've got in your design). What I would do is look at your current project and see what the resource utilization is and how much space you have left in the device. Then assume something like ~2000 LEs to add another core.

    Jake