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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

PIO or Custom Component?

I'm starting a design with the SOPC (NIOS) and I cant decide if I should put my signal processing functionality outside the SOPC (and use the PIO) OR create a custom component and put it in the SOPC.

The signal processing is pretty intense but there are a lot of parameters that have to be passed from the NIOS which would make the PIO a hassle. I cant find anything in the documentation that contrasts the two methods. Im' leaning towards the custom component b/c it seems cleaner but I would hate to get far into it and find out that it wont work in the SOPC.

What are the big differences between the two methods (functionally speaking)? Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

1 Reply

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

    I would go with a custom interface because...

    a- it is not that difficult to implement

    b- you have more flexibility as far as address map (or number of addressable IO)

    c- you can implement bursting if you need to - I am not sure PIO can handle that

    d- you can tell when the CPU is reading and writing without having to use interrupts or polling

    hope this helps.