LatticeMico32 is a 32-bit microprocessor reduced instruction set computer (RISC) soft core from Lattice Semiconductor optimized for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It uses a Harvard architecture, which means the instruction and data buses are separate. Bus arbitration logic can be used to combine the two buses, if desired.
LatticeMico32 is licensed under a free (IP) core license. This means that the Mico32 is not restricted to Lattice FPGAs, and can be legally used on any host architecture (FPGA, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or software emulation, e.g., QEMU). It is possible to embed a LatticeMico32 core into Xilinx and Altera FPGAs, in addition to the Lattice Semiconductor parts the LatticeMico32 was developed for. AMD PowerTune uses LatticeMico32.
The CPU core and the development toolchain are available as source-code, allowing third parties to implement changes to the processor architecture.
Features
RISC load/store architecture
32-bit data path
32-bit fixed-size instructions (all instructions are 32 bits, including jump, call and branch instructions.) 32 general purpose registers (R0 is typically set to zero by convention, however R0 is a standard register and other values may be assigned to it if so desired.) Up to 32 external interrupts Configurable instruction set including user defined instructions Optional configurable caches (direct-mapped or 2-way set-associative, with a variety of cache sizes and arrangements) Optional pipelined memories Dual Wishbone memory interfaces (one read-only instruction bus, one read-write data/peripheral bus) Memory mapped I/O 6 stage pipeline
Toolchain
GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) – C/C++ compiler; LatticeMico32 support is added in GCC 4.5.0, patches are available for support in GCC 4.4.0 Binutils – Assembler, linker, and binary utilities; supports LatticeMico32 since version 2.19 GNU Debugger (GDB) – Debugger Eclipse – Integrated development environment (IDE) Newlib – C library µCos-II, µITRON, RTEMS - real-time operating systems (RTOS) μClinux – operating system
See also
Milkymist – LatticeMico32-based system on a chip (SoC)