A tiny Open POWER ISA softcore written in VHDL 2008
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Anton Blanchard 1fa0b332ca micropython only requires 512kB of BRAM
Mikey points out that our stack grows down from 512kB and our
heap is below that too, so we can reduce our BRAM requirements,
which allowing some smaller FPGA boards to work. Not sure why
I thought we were using memory between 512kB and 1MB.

Signed-off-by: Anton Blanchard <anton@linux.ibm.com>
5 years ago
fpga micropython only requires 512kB of BRAM 5 years ago
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common.vhdl Initial import of microwatt 5 years ago
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README.md

Microwatt

A tiny Open POWER ISA softcore written in VHDL 2008. It aims to be simple and easy to understand.

Simulation using ghdl

MicroPython running on Microwatt

  • Build micropython. If you aren't building on a ppc64le box you will need a cross compiler. If it isn't available on your distro grab the powerpc64le-power8 toolchain from https://toolchains.bootlin.com
git clone https://github.com/mikey/micropython
cd micropython
git checkout powerpc
cd ports/powerpc
make -j$(nproc)
cd ../../../
  • Microwatt uses ghdl for simulation. Either install this from your distro or build it. Next build microwatt:
git clone https://github.com/antonblanchard/microwatt
cd microwatt
make
  • Link in the micropython image:
ln -s ../micropython/ports/powerpc/build/firmware.bin simple_ram_behavioural.bin
  • Now run microwatt, sending debug output to /dev/null:
./core_tb > /dev/null

Synthesis on Xilinx FPGAs using Vivado

  • Install Vivado (I'm using the free 2019.1 webpack edition).

  • Setup Vivado paths:

source /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.1/settings64.sh
  • Install FuseSoC:
pip3 install --user -U fusesoc
  • Create a working directory and point FuseSoC at microwatt:
mkdir microwatt-fusesoc
cd microwatt-fusesoc
fusesoc library add microwatt /path/to/microwatt/
  • Build using FuseSoC. For hello world (Replace nexys_video with your FPGA board):
fusesoc run --target=nexys_video microwatt --memory_size=8192 --ram_init_file=/path/to/microwatt/fpga/hello_world.hex
  • To build micropython (currently requires 1MB of BRAM eg an Artix-7 A200):
fusesoc run --target=nexys_video microwatt

Testing

  • A simple test suite containing random execution test cases and a couple of micropython test cases can be run with:
make -j$(nproc) check

Issues

This is functional, but very simple. We still have quite a lot to do:

  • Need to implement a simple non pipelined divide
  • There are a few instructions still to be implemented
  • Need to add caches and bypassing (in progress)
  • Need to add supervisor state (in progress)