Pico Communications E-15 manual PowerPC Processor, PPC405x3 Processor Introduction

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PowerPC™ Processor

PPC405x3 Processor Introduction:

FPGAs are renowned for their ability to process parallel logic, but they typically have a hard time emulating a high performance processor. To get the best of both worlds the Virtex-4™ features an embedded Power PC Processor. Since the processor shares the same die as the FPGA it seamlessly interfaces with the FPGA fabric.

A new feature of the Virtex-4 FPGA is the addition of an auxiliary processor interface. The APU is the highest speed interface between the PowerPC™ processor and the FPGA fabric. Up to four custom instructions may be implemented in the FPGA, which are accessible from the PowerPC™.

Board support packages are currently available for µC/OS and Linux. Board support source code is available open source under the GPL.

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