Multicore Trouble? Try An FPGA

Dec. 13, 2007

Asymmetric multicore on-chip can be a challenge because of the lead time required to develop a custom chip. Falling FPGA prices and rising FPGA functionality offer an alternative for evaluation as well as production. This is especially

William G. Wong

This latest edition of MicroBlaze incorporates a number of new features, including a memory management unit (MMU), enabling it to run higher-end, protected operating systems like Linux. A single-core MicroBlaze requires only a fraction of even a low-end Spartan-3E FPGA like the one available on Xilinxâ??s EDK, which uses about 1100 lookup tables (LUTs) (see the figure). There are fewer in the Virtex-5 FPGA, which uses a more advanced six-input LUT.

Thanks to a multiport memory controller, multiple cores can be implemented. It also offers hardware-based mutex mailbox functionality. A new gigabit Ethernet MAC with a Treck Inc. Ethernet stack boosts performance by a factor of five compared to the prior version of MicroBlaze, MAC, and opensource stack.

Additional cores might be MicroBlaze units with custom instructions or enhancements. They also could be completely different cores, permitting an asymmetric mix with a system that still supports standard, high-end operating systems.

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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