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SOFT CELL

by Tom Cantrell

Start ı Start Making Sense ı Viva La Difference ı No Free Lunch ı Tool Sweet ı Real Time or Hard Time? ı Small Step, Big Journey ı Sources and PDF

NO FREE LUNCH

ProMic performance meets the needs of mid-range 16-bit apps, the up-front price for the IP seems like a bargain, and portability to different FPGAs is a unique plus.

But something has to give, and in this case, itıs the amount of logic consumed by the core (see Figure 3). With the understanding that comparing these things is a bit of a black art, itıs still clear that ProMic pays a silicon penalty for its programmer-friendly architecture, synthesizeability, and portability.

Figure 3ıThe first version of ProMic consumes a lot of logic, but the FPGA suppliers are more than happy to oblige with denser chips.

In terms of logic cells or elements (roughly considered a four-input LUT plus a flip-flop), ProMic is notably larger than many other soft-cores, especially optimized handcrafted designs such as the previously mentioned xr16. Combined with the stubbornly high prices commanded by the FPGAs, the amount of logic consumed holds ProMic back in comparison with traditional controllers.

However, the folks at Microlor did inform me that theyıre working on upgraded versions of ProMic, including one thatıs more than twice as fast and a non-pipelined version that should consume much less logic.

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