A selection of articles and presentations by Embecosm staff.
EAR15. Softcores for FPGA: The Free and Open Source Alternatives, by Dr Jeremy Bennett and Simon Cook.
In this article we’ll look at some of the more widely used: the OpenRISC 1000 from OpenCores, Gaisler’s LEON family, Lattice Semiconductor’s LM32 and Oracle’s OpenSPARC, as well as more bleeding edge research designs such as BERI and CHERI from Cambridge University Computer Laboratory.
We’ll consider the technology, the business case, the engineering risks, and the licensing challenges of using such designs.