Embedded SoPC Design with Nios II Processor and Verilog Examples

PREFACE

An SoC (system on a chip) integrates a processor, memory modules, I/O peripherals, and custom hardware accelerators into a single integrated circuit. As the capacity of FPGA (field-programmable gate array) devices continues to grow, the same design methodology can be realized in an FPGA chip and is sometimes known as SoPC (system on a programmable chip). In a traditional embedded system, the hardware is constructed around a fixed-sized processor and off-the-shelf peripherals and the software is customized to implement the desired functionalities. The emerging SoPC-based design provides a new alternative. Because of the programmability of FPGA devices, customized hardware can be incorporated into the embedded system as well. We can tailor the processor, select only the needed I/O peripherals, create a custom I/O interface, and develop specialized hardware accelerators for computation-intensive tasks.

The current development of HDL (hardware description language) synthesis and FPGA devices and the availability of soft-core processors allow designers to quickly develop and simulate custom hardware and software, realize the entire system on a prototyping device, and verify the operation of the physical implementation. We can now use a PC and an inexpensive FPGA prototyping board to construct a sophisticated embedded system. This book uses a “learning by doing” approach and illustrates the hardware and software design and development process by a series of examples. An Altera ...