Lattice said it is releasing the Hardware Description Language (HDL) code of the 32-bit microprocessor core and various peripheral components generated by the LatticeMico32 System, along with selected tools, in an open source format.
The heart of the product is the LatticeMico32 System development tool suite, which provides a way to implement microprocessor designs from platform definition to software development and debug, Lattice said.
"The LatticeMico32 microprocessor is a comprehensive, high performance and easy to use 32-bit processor solution," said Stan Kopec, Lattice corporate vice president of marketing. "The LatticeMico32 open source license is another industry first from Lattice that provides our customers with an extraordinary embedded processor and related development environment at no charge."
According to Lattice (Hillsboro, Ore.), the LatticeMico32 microprocessor uses fewer than 2,000 look up tables, resulting in a cost of less than $1 of FPGA logic in select LatticeECP2 FPGAs in high volume. The reduced instruction set computer (RISC), Harvard-based architecture uses 32-bits for data path and instructions and supports optional data and instruction caches, as well as user-defined instructions, Lattice said.
The LatticeMico32 System development tools, based on the Eclipse C Development Tools environment, integrate with the Lattice ispLEVER tool suite (version 6.0 SP1 or higher) to enable designers to build microprocessor systems on Lattice FPGAs, Lattice said. To help users evaluate their microprocessor designs in hardware, Lattice provides a LatticeMico32 Development Kit that includes ispLEVER software design tools, the LatticeMico32 System development tool suite and a development board, the company said.
Lattice claims that the LatticeMico32 is unique among the microprocessors offered by FPGA vendors in that the generated microprocessor and selected peripheral HDL code are licensed under Lattice's open source license agreement.
The LatticeMico32 System development tools are available now for the LatticeECP and LatticeEC FPGA families, Lattice said. The tools can be downloaded at no charge from the LatticeMico32 Center.
Also Monday, Lattice announced the LatticeECP2M FPGA family, offering high-speed embedded serdes I/O plus a pre-engineered physical coding sublayer block.
