Soft microprocessor

A soft microprocessor (also called softcore microprocessor or a soft processor) is a microprocessor core that can be wholly implemented using logic synthesis. It can be implemented via different semiconductor devices containing programmable logic (e.g., FPGA, CPLD).

Most systems, if they use a soft processor at all, only use a single soft processor.However, a few designers tile as many soft cores onto a FPGA as will fit [ [http://www.embedded.com/columns/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192700615"FPGA Architectures from 'A' to 'Z'"] by Clive Maxfield 2006] .In those multi-core systems, rarely-used resources can be shared between all the cores in a cluster, leading to Jan's Razor.

Quote|Jan's Razor: In a chip multiprocessor design, strive toleave out all but the minimal kernel set of features fromeach processing element, so as to maximize processingelements per die.|Jan Gray

Core comparison

See also

* SoC (System-on-a-chip)
* SoPC (System on Programmable Chip)
* FPGA (Field-programmable gate array)
* reconfigurable computing

External links

* [http://ews.uiuc.edu/~pdabrows/soft_processor_comparison.html Detailed Comparison of 12 Soft Microprocessors]
* [http://www.fpgacpu.org FPGA CPU News]
* [http://f-cpu.org Freedom CPU website]
* [http://www.opencores.com/browse.cgi/filter/category_microprocessor Microprocessor cores] on Opencores.org
* [http://www.niktech.com NikTech] 32 bit RISC Microprocessor MANIK. Is a complete processor available for FREE, includes DDR Controller, ETHERNET Mac.GCC, binutils complete build environment for cygwin is also provided. The developer resources also provide examples and SOCs for XILINX / DIGILENT Spartan Starter kits. A useful system can be built in the 200K Spartan 3 kit.