Monday, January 09, 2012

LEON3


The LEON3 is a synthesisable VHDL model of a 32-bit processor compliant with the SPARC V8 architecture. The model is highly configurable, and particularly suitable for system-on-a-chip (SOC) designs. The full source code is available under the GNU GPL license, allowing free and unlimited use for research and education. LEON3 is also available under a low-cost commercial license, allowing it to be used in any commercial application to a fraction of the cost of comparable IP cores. The LEON3 processor has the following features:
  • SPARC V8 instruction set with V8e extensions
  • Advanced 7-stage pipeline
  • Hardware multiply, divide and MAC units
  • High-performance, fully pipelined IEEE-754 FPU
  • Separate instruction and data cache (Harvard architecture) with snooping
  • Configurable caches: 1 - 4 ways, 1 - 256 kbytes/way. Random, LRR or LRU replacement
  • Local instruction and data scratch pad RAM, 1 - 512 Kbytes
  • SPARC Reference MMU (SRMMU) with configurable TLB
  • AMBA-2.0 AHB bus interface
  • Advanced on-chip debug support with instruction and data trace buffer
  • Symmetric Multi-processor support (SMP)
  • Power-down mode and clock gating
  • Robust and fully synchronous single-edge clock design
  • Up to 125 MHz in FPGA and 400 MHz on 0.13 um ASIC technologies
  • Fault-tolerant and SEU-proof version available for space applications
  • Extensively configurable
  • Large range of software tools: compilers, kernels, simulators and debug monitors
  • High Performance: 1.4 DMIPS/MHz, 1.8 CoreMark/MHz (gcc -4.1.2)

The LEON3 processor is distributed as part of the GRLIB IP library, allowing simple integration into complex SOC designs. GRLIB also includes a configurable LEON3 multi-processor design, with up to 4 CPU's and a large range of on-chip peripheral blocks.