AVR HP, Hyper Pipelined AVR Core

Description

The project is based on OpenCores' AVR project by Ruslan Lepetenok.

The core is now hyper pipelined. It is a technique to multiply the functionality
of a design by adding registers (called pipeline stage registers) to the core logic
in order to multiply its functionality. If you are interested in the technology, go to www.cloudx.cc

The functional behavior of the AVR remains the same, the hyper pipelined version
is used when multiple, equal AVR cores (2, 3, ...) are instantiated in the
design (multicores).

The main benefit is the multiplication of the core's functionality by only
implementing registers. This leads to a reduced size compared to the
individual instantiation of the cores. This is a great advantage for ASICs
but obviously very attractive for FPGAs with their already existing registers.

Another issue is the performance of the resulting hyper pipelined AVR core.
The pipeline stage registers are timing driven placed to partition the critical
path into equal parts, which leads to an almost multiplied performance of the
design. The timing is optimized for a Spartan 3 and a Virtex 5 device from Xilinx.

The modifications are done on RTL, so that the project can be used in an
RTL based testbench.

The project shows the modified RTL code with 2, 3 and 4 times multiplied
functionality. It is delivered with a testbench and a detailed documentation.


Enjoy ...