vandelay
Advanced Member level 4
Hi,
I am working on a circuit layout where I need to integrate a microprocessor to an FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6), and the microprocessor hardware resources available to me is an external memory interface (capable of both SDRAM and SRAM). Now, the FPGA is there to provide I/O peripheral resources, likely a dozen or so of SPI-like ports (plus UART and PWM), it will take care of sending and recieving data between external devices and internal memory much like a DMA, and for programming convinience I’d like to treat it as some sort of RAM from the microprocessor (to read and write memory buffers on the FPGA as if it was a regular memory). The data bus is 16-bit wide, separate address pins (no address/data multiplexing).
I am new into the field of FPGA so I have to ask: Which signals will be needed for this? Can I use a static RAM (SRAM) interface, or will it be better to use extra support pins and interface it as SDRAM? Also, it would be great to know the reason for the suggestion given.
Dunno if it is useful information, but the microprocessor has two memory interfaces where external processor memory goes on the other interface, so the FPGA has an entire bus all to itself, with short traces and great signal integrity.
Sincerely,
Kjetil
I am working on a circuit layout where I need to integrate a microprocessor to an FPGA (Xilinx Spartan-6), and the microprocessor hardware resources available to me is an external memory interface (capable of both SDRAM and SRAM). Now, the FPGA is there to provide I/O peripheral resources, likely a dozen or so of SPI-like ports (plus UART and PWM), it will take care of sending and recieving data between external devices and internal memory much like a DMA, and for programming convinience I’d like to treat it as some sort of RAM from the microprocessor (to read and write memory buffers on the FPGA as if it was a regular memory). The data bus is 16-bit wide, separate address pins (no address/data multiplexing).
I am new into the field of FPGA so I have to ask: Which signals will be needed for this? Can I use a static RAM (SRAM) interface, or will it be better to use extra support pins and interface it as SDRAM? Also, it would be great to know the reason for the suggestion given.
Dunno if it is useful information, but the microprocessor has two memory interfaces where external processor memory goes on the other interface, so the FPGA has an entire bus all to itself, with short traces and great signal integrity.
Sincerely,
Kjetil