Project Name: Mini-Risc core

(See change Log at bottom of page for changes/updates)

Description:

This is a Mini-RISC CPU/Microcontroller that is compatible with the PIC 16C57 from Microchip. Additional information about the instruction set and capabilities can be found at: www.microchip.com

Legal Notice

PIC, Microchip, etc. are Trademarks of Microchip Technology Inc. I have no idea if implementing this core will or will not violate patents, copyrights or cause any other type of lawsuits. I provide this core AS IS, without any warranties. If you decide to build this core, you are responsible for any legal resolutions, such as patents and copyrights, and perhaps others .... This source files may be used and distributed without restriction provided that all copyright statement are not removed from the files and that any derivative work contains the original copyright notices and the associated disclaimer.

THIS SOURCE FILES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT
LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Motivation

• A PIC compatible Microcontroller that runs a lot faster
• Synthesisable and technology independent design
• Separate (External to the core) Program Memory
• Options to extend the core

Compatibility

This design should be fully software compatible to the Microchip Implementation of the PIC 16C57, except for the following extensions:

• Port A is full 8 bits wide
• Hardware stack is 4 level deep [original 2 levels] (can be easily expanded)
• Executions of instructions that modify the PC has became a lot more expensive due to the pipeline and execution of instructions on every cycle. Any instruction that writes to the PC (PC as destination (f), call, goto, retlw) now takes 4 cycles to execute (instead of 2 in the original implementation).
  The 4 'skip' instructions, remain as in the original implementation: 1 cycle if not skipped, 2 cycles if skipped.
• Sampling of IO ports might be off
• Timer and watchdog might be off a few cycles

Performance

• Single cycle instruction execution, except as noted above for PC modifications.
• I estimate about 22K gates with the xilinx primitives, (excluding Register File and Program Memory). A Xilinx Vertex XCV100 can hold 4 of this cores and program memory, and still have some room left.

Implementing the Core

The only file you should edit if you really want to implement this core, is the 'primitives.v' file. It contains all parts that can be optimized, depending on the technology used. It includes memories, and arithmetic modules. I added a primitives_xilinx,v file and xilinx_primitives.zip which contain primitives for xilinx.

Status

First version of the core is released. Included with the release is also a small test bench and several test programs written in assembly. MPLAB from Microchip, can be used to compile and develop additional code.

The core can be downloaded from OpenCores CVS via cvsweb or via cvsget (use minirisc for module name)

Development Tools

A very nice(and free) development environment with a software simulator is provided by Microchip on their web site. This environment works only on PCs. Various free and chimerical tools are available from third party, just Search the web !

Here is a link to the Microchip Development environment (http://www.microchip.com/10/Tools/PICmicro/DevEnv/)

To-Do

Things that need to be done

1. Write more test/compliance test vectors
   • Verify that all instructions after a goto/call/retlw/write to PCL are not executed
   • Verify ALU
   • Timer and Watchdog tests
• Perhaps some other areas ?
2. Extensions ?
   • guess this is on a "as needed" basis
   • Would be nice to extend the register file and have a few registers that are shared between two or more of this cores in a MP implementation !

Author / Maintainer

I have been doing ASIC design, verification and synthesis for over 15 years. This core is only a "midnight hack", and should be used with caution. I'd also like to know if anyone will actually use this core. Please send me a note if you will !

Rudolf Usselmann rudi@asics.ws_NOSPAM

Feel free to send me comments, suggestions and bug reports.

Change Log

6/18/200 RU
- Added this Change Log
- Added "Development Tools" Section|
- Removed speed claims from the "Performance" Section: Need to re-synthsise the core and resolve synthesis tool/backend tool issues.
- added "risc_core_top.v", a top level with tri-state buffers and program memory, to make it look like a real PIC !
- Updated the primitives_xilinx.v so it will work correctly with Synplify and Synopsys FPGA compiler