Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
21 years ago

which embedded core is better?

Can anybody explain the difference between nios and arm, or other CPU, such as PowerPC.

which area does the nios core fit for?

thanks for any advice

ps:my enlish is weak http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif

3 Replies

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

    Hi sclarkca,

    Nios is a soft core processor, that is a processor implemented in a programmable logic device through a HDL (hardware description language) such as VHDL. Altera has also FPGA with "hard core" processor within, in particular Arm processor: it&#39;s a processor implemented in a dedicated hardware device, with programmable logic all around.

    ok?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    21 years ago

    thanks for your apply.

    I got it.

    but i still confused about why the nios can be configured? which kind of operation can be called configuration.

    If arm core is provided with the soft core, can we configure it as nios core? (we don&#39;t have barrier about the tools).
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    21 years ago

    Hi sclarkca,

    you can completly configure your Nios soft core processor:

    - three different core in speed and logic occupation (e,s,f)

    - cache memory

    - peripheral such as uart and timer, in number and type

    - you can include your own peripheral

    and so on...

    Arm processor isn&#39;t a soft core.

    However to understand better the question you can download some ptf file about Nios from Altera site http://www.altera.com/ (http://www.altera.com/).

    bye