Pico Communications E-14 - Manual (Page 8)

E‐14 Hardware Reference Manual www.picocomputing.com Pico Computing, Inc.
8
PowerPC™ Processor
PPC405x3 Processor Introduction:
FPGAs are renowned for their ability to process parallel logic, but they typically have a hard time
emulating a high performance processor. To get the best of both worlds the Virtex‐4™ features an
embedded Power PC Processor. Since the processor shares the same die as the FPGA it seamlessly
interfaces with the FPGA fabric.
A new feature of the Vitex‐4 FPGA is the addition of an auxiliary processor interface. The APU is the
highest speed interface between the Power‐PC™ processor and the FPGA fabric. Up to four custom
instructions may be implemented in the FPGA, which are accessible from the Power‐PC™.
Board support packages are currently available for
μ C/OS, Linux and Integrity. Board support source
code is available open source under the GPL.