Hi all, after finally getting my microcoded CPU working both on GHDL and on a Nexys4 board, I have some questions about RAM access. On most current micros, there are instructions that load/store data to the RAM at different widths, e.g. 8-, 16-, 32- and 64-bit. These also generally have to be aligned to the width, e.g. 32-bit accesses have to be on byte addresses that are multiples of four. The question is, how is this implemented? Assume that the data bus is 64-bits and the CPU wants to write 8-bits at location X. Is there a 64-bit fetch, the lowest 8-bits are modified and the new 64-bits of data written back. Or, is only 8-bits of new data sent down the data bus and the RAM has to ensure that this gets written at the correct location? Along with suitable control lines to tell the RAM the size of the transfer. Or, some other mechanism? I'm asking because my microcoded CPU only does 16-bit transfers and I would like to modify it to permit 8- and 16-bit transfers. If there is a descriptive web resource on this, please pass on the link(s)! Many thanks in advance for your help, Warren P.S Links to my CPU implentations: http://minnie.tuhs.org/Programs/UcodeCPU/ghdl_download.html http://minnie.tuhs.org/Programs/UcodeCPU/nexys4_install.html
I see two possible solutions you could apply: A) Dual port RAM. This helps if you want to use two widths only (e.g. 8 and 16-bit). You have two completely separate address and data busses. The address bus with the 16-bit data has one bit less (the LSB which needs always to be 0). Be aware that addressing the same memory content simultaneously from both ports may cause trouble... B) RAM with byte write enable. With that you can realise even more possibilities (e.g. 8-, 16- and 32-bit access). In this case, the following rules apply: 32-bit: Bit 1:0 of the address are 0, all 4 bytes are enabled 16-bit: Bit 0 the address is 0, bit 1 of the address is used to either enable bytes 1:0 (if 0) or bytes 3:2 (if 1). 8-bit: Bit 1:0 of the address are directly used to enable (address) one of the byte enables of the word. A) is limited to 2 widths B) extendable to even more. I don't know how far these are supported by FPGA IP libraries, depends on vendor. At least B) you can implement on any FPGA "by hand" (given sufficient resources).
:
Edited by User
Please log in before posting. Registration is free and takes only a minute.
Existing account
Do you have a Google/GoogleMail account? No registration required!
Log in with Google account
Log in with Google account
No account? Register here.