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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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18 years ago

Alternatives to NIOS

I'm getting a bit frustrated with NIOS and I'd like to consider alternative soft-cores. NIOS seems to be very powerful for OS implementations, but not too efficient for small microcontroller-like applications.

At this point, I'm looking for a free, ideally open-source soft-core. Anybody tried other soft-cores?

What about Mico32/Mico8, and MicroBlaze/PicoBlaze open-source clones like PacoBlaze? Is it legal to use them in Altera devices?

Thanks,

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  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    14 years ago

    http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeosqt4/embeddedcengine

    The above link can download the source code parser that includes a software model of the hardware. The demo code is to show that C like statements can be executed without being compiled to many cpu instructions.

    The attachment is a Quartus 9.1 archive of the hardware design.

    The final design is to be a custom component used by SOPC Builder as general purpose(programmable) accelerators to lessen the load of the application processor.