Soft processor core runs on budget FPGAs

Altera has added Nios II embedded processor support to its new Cyclone II FPGA family, claiming a one-two punch in the embedded processor market.

Altera has added Nios II embedded processor support to its new Cyclone II FPGA family, claiming a one-two punch in the embedded processor market.

Consuming as little as $0.35 of logic, the combination of the Nios II embedded processor and the Cyclone II FPGA costs 50% less than the nearest competing offering and is the lowest-cost soft-core processor solution in the industry.

The Nios II embedded processor also delivers performance of more than 100DMIPs in a Cyclone II FPGA, allowing designers to build a complete system on a programmable chip (SoPC) in a fraction of the time and with significantly less risk and cost compared to low- and mid-density ASICs.

This announcement follows on the popularity and success of the first-generation Cyclone FPGA and Nios embedded processor, which have been implemented in a variety of applications such as consumer digital displays, digital cameras, DVD players, set-top boxes, and computer peripherals.

As the pressure rises for systems manufacturers to get to market quickly at the lowest possible cost, the increased densities and lower cost offered by Cyclone II FPGAs and Nios II embedded processors is expected to accelerate the use of programmable logic in these highly competitive markets.

"Cyclone FPGAs and the Nios embedded processor play a crucial role in our Hybrid Car-TV receiver that combines analogue and digital video broadcast reception capabilities".

"Cyclone FPGAs provide us with an affordable solution for implementing the DSP functions required for TV reception, and the availability of multipliers in Cyclone II devices makes Altera's low-cost FPGAs even more attractive for signal processing applications", said Dr Dirk Wendt, Director of Development at Hirschmann Electronics Group.

"Further, Altera's SOPC Builder enabled us to easily construct the exact Nios processor we needed to perform antenna control functions, and with the Nios II processor, we look forward to achieving even greater performance and improved resource efficiency".

With life cycles for high-volume, low-cost products rapidly shrinking, system manufacturers have the added pressure of making sure they get to market quickly with the latest technology.

Taking into account the lengthy development time for ASICs, standard off-the-shelf hard-core processors implemented in ASICs stand the risk of already being obsolete by the time the end product is put on the shelf.

Hence, OEMs are increasingly turning to FPGAs for flexibility to build their systems and get to market quickly.

Nios II processor-based solutions are obsolescence-proof, providing even more flexibility because they are constructed from HDL code that can be retargeted to address new system requirements.

The ability to implement multiple soft processors in a single Cyclone II device helps to further reduce system costs, power requirements, and board space.

"The Nios II and Cyclone II combination is particularly potent for designers looking for a lower risk, less expensive alternative to stand-alone microcontrollers or low- to mid-density ASICs", said Bob Garrett, Senior Marketing Manager for Nios product marketing.

"Developers can fully customise the CPU and peripherals and get exactly the processor they need while optimising system performance by leveraging the latest FPGA technology".

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