A 32-Bit Parameterized Leon-3 Processor with Custom Peripheral Integration

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to integrate custom cores as peripherals as Co-Processors (CPs) to a processor. For this purpose, a 32-bit open source processor was be tested on an FPGA. For proof of concept, a simple open source 8-bit processor was selected to run on FPGA using custom instructions written in C. Thereafter, we tried to change speci cations and peripherals of the peripherals like timers, UART, SPI etc. For 32-bit processor, starting with an open source processor design for Leon 3, the study involved synthesis of code, compilation of program, and test of pre-con gured peripherals on an FPGA. Once a decent level of understanding was achieved, a new peripheral was integrated into the processor to enhance the processor's capabilities, and to adapt them for better performance in a given domain of applications. Using study of processor architecture of Leon 3, we tried to design our own processor with peripherals, memory management module and custom compiler.