Reason #7 to Customize a Processor - Future Proof Your Design

Written by Paula Jones April 21, 2010 Hits: 280 Favorites

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In many industries, standards often change and new algorithms must be incorporated into your next product, or even an existing product. If you've hard coded the algorithm in RTL, there's no changing that after the chip is made. However, if you implement the design in a processor, by definition you can make firmware changes after the silicon is made.

This is the standard reason to use a processor instead of RTL. But why is this an especially important reason to use customizable processors? Because, with customizable processors, you can embed the logic you were going to put in an external RTL block right into the processor’s data path. You can also customize the data path to the exact width required. If you need to process 56-bit data, you can process that all in one chunk rather than two less efficient 32-bit operations.

Your processor, therefore, becomes much more efficient, and the need to offload tasks to dedicated hardwired blocks of RTL is greatly reduced if not eliminated. So these functions, which previously were in RTL, are now software programmable in the processor itself.

For more information, read the white paper: The What, Why and How of Configurable Processors.

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Written by :

Paula Jones