Re: [microblaze-uclinux] Multiple Microblaze cores

We have put 4-6 Microblaze into the FPGA on XUP board w/ 256MB RAM, each running uClinux with many apps. It was not easy, due to many bugs in the existing Xilinx IP cores when you put multiple microblazes in, and we end up reimplementing several IP cores, including the memory controller.

Note that this report is not polished to publishable quality, please view it as a extended summary. Please contact us if you have further questions. I am glad someone else is considering the same thing. I believe we will have a lot experiences to share.

On 5/19/06, Kapelonis Kostis <kkapelon@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello

>From the contents of this list it seems to me
that 99% of people use uclinux on a single Microblaze
cpu.

Now I guess that some of you have already some
designs with 2 Microblaze cpus but with each
one running a separate OS (2 uclinux kernels).

I am thinking of adding 4 Microblaze cores to
an FPGA and run _one_ uclinux kernel on them.
It won't be strictly SMP-ish but you get the idea.

But before I deal with the software, what about the hardware?
Can 4 Microblaze core share resources on an FPGA in a deterministic way?

I know that my XUP board has enough space for 4 Microblaze cores.
I don't know what happens if all four of them attempt to access
the OPB DDR memory chip or any other hardware resource at the same time.
Will it work?

Have you any experience with this?
Have you observed any scalability issues with more than 2 Microblaze
CPUs?

Kostis

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