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== Adding Custom Hardware Modules

In resemblance to the RISC-V ISA, the NEORV32 processor was designed to ease customization and _extensibility_.

The processor provides several predefined options to add application-specific custom hardware modules and accelerators.

=== Standard (_External_) Interfaces

The processor already provides a set of standard interfaces that are intended to connect _chip-external_ devices.

However, these interfaces can also be used chip-internally. The most suitable interfaces are

https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_general_purpose_input_and_output_port_gpio[GPIO],

https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_primary_universal_asynchronous_receiver_and_transmitter_uart0[UART],

https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_serial_peripheral_interface_controller_spi[SPI] and

https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_two_wire_serial_interface_controller_twi[TWI].

The SPI and (especially) the GPIO interfaces might be the most straightforward approaches since they

have a minimal  protocol overhead. Device-specific interrupt capabilities can be added using the

https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_external_interrupt_controller_xirq[External Interrupt Controller (XIRQ)].

Beyond simplicity, these interface only provide a very limited bandwidth and require more sophisticated

software handling ("bit-banging" for the GPIO).

=== External Bus Interface

The https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_processor_external_memory_interface_wishbone_axi4_lite[External Bus Interface]

provides the classic approach to connect to custom IP. By default, the bus interface implements the widely adopted

Wishbone interface standard. However, this project also includes wrappers to bridge to other protocol standards like ARM's

AXI4-Lite or Intel's Avalon. By using a full-featured bus protocol, complex SoC structures can be implemented (including

several modules and even multi-core architectures). Many FPGA EDA tools provide graphical editors to build and customize

whole SoC architectures and even include pre-defined IP libraries.

.Example AXI SoC using Xilinx Vivado

image::neorv32_axi_soc.png[]

The bus interface uses a memory-mapped approach. All data transfers are handled by simple load/store operations since the

external bus interface is mapped into the processor's https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_address_space[address space].

This allows a very simple still high-bandwidth communications.

=== Stream Link Interface

The NEORV32 https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_stream_link_interface_slink[Stream Link Interface] provides

point-to-point, unidirectional and parallel data channels that can be used to transfer streaming data. In

contrast to the external bus interface, the streaming data does not provide any kind of "direction" control,

so it can be seen as "constant address bursts". The stream link interface provides less protocol overhead

and less latency than the bus interface. Furthermore, FIFOs can be be configured to each direction (RX/TX) to

allow more CPU-independent operation.

=== Custom Functions Subsystem

The NEORV32 https://stnolting.github.io/neorv32/#_custom_functions_subsystem_cfs[Custom Functions Subsystem] is

an "empty" template for a processor-internal module. It provides 32 32-bit memory-mapped interface

registers that can be used to communicate with any arbitrary custom design logic. The intentions of this

subsystem is to provide a simple base, where the user can concentrate on implementing the actual design logic

rather than taking care of the communication between the CPU/software and the design logic. The interface

registers are already allocated within the processor's address space and are supported by the software framework

via low-level hardware access mechanisms. Additionally, the CFS provides a direct pre-defined interrupt channel to

the CPU, which is also supported by the NEORV32 runtime environment.