HW Multiplier

> Who was the idiot who took out the hardware multiplier in NIOS2 [for Cyclone] ????

That would be me! (Actually there were three of us who decided that, but hey, I'm here.) And you are absolutely right--about the need for a multiplier in Nios II for Cyclone.

The good news is that it's in the next release of the dev. kit (enabled by some Quartus II 4.1 synthesis enhancements). And further good news is that the release is "near the end of the year," as Alan says in another thread.

But since you need something now, elan describes his solution in the thread "hw multiplier for Cyclone".

And more related info is in the thread "NIOS II DMIPS".

An added bonus is that the 32-bit multiplier in the Nios II/s and Nios II/f cores in Cyclone should be faster than 32-bit multiplication in the original Nios core, because in Nios II it's a full hardware solution, while in the original Nios it's a software routine that uses the 16x16 multiply instruction three times.

Kerry

Altera