Embedded Peripherals IP User Guide

ID 683130
Date 10/18/2023
Public

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Document Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Avalon® -ST Multi-Channel Shared Memory FIFO Core 3. Avalon® -ST Single-Clock and Dual-Clock FIFO Cores 4. Avalon® -ST Serial Peripheral Interface Core 5. SPI Core 6. SPI Agent/JTAG to Avalon® Host Bridge Cores 7. Intel eSPI Agent Core 8. eSPI to LPC Bridge Core 9. Ethernet MDIO Core 10. Intel FPGA 16550 Compatible UART Core 11. UART Core 12. JTAG UART Core 13. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mailbox Core 14. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mutex Core 15. Intel FPGA Avalon® I2C (Host) Core 16. Intel FPGA I2C Agent to Avalon® -MM Host Bridge Core 17. Intel FPGA Avalon® Compact Flash Core 18. EPCS/EPCQA Serial Flash Controller Core 19. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller Core 20. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller II Core 21. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller Core 22. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller II Core 23. Interval Timer Core 24. Intel FPGA Avalon FIFO Memory Core 25. On-Chip Memory (RAM and ROM) Intel FPGA IP 26. On-Chip Memory II (RAM or ROM) Intel FPGA IP 27. Optrex 16207 LCD Controller Core 28. PIO Core 29. PLL Cores 30. DMA Controller Core 31. Modular Scatter-Gather DMA Core 32. Scatter-Gather DMA Controller Core 33. SDRAM Controller Core 34. Tri-State SDRAM Core 35. Video Sync Generator and Pixel Converter Cores 36. Intel FPGA Interrupt Latency Counter Core 37. Performance Counter Unit Core 38. Vectored Interrupt Controller Core 39. Avalon® -ST Data Pattern Generator and Checker Cores 40. Avalon® -ST Test Pattern Generator and Checker Cores 41. System ID Peripheral Core 42. Avalon® Packets to Transactions Converter Core 43. Avalon® -ST Multiplexer and Demultiplexer Cores 44. Avalon® -ST Bytes to Packets and Packets to Bytes Converter Cores 45. Avalon® -ST Delay Core 46. Avalon® -ST Round Robin Scheduler Core 47. Avalon® -ST Splitter Core 48. Avalon® -MM DDR Memory Half Rate Bridge Core 49. Intel FPGA GMII to RGMII Converter Core 50. Intel FPGA MII to RMII Converter Core 51. HPS GMII to TSE 1000BASE-X/SGMII PCS Bridge Core Intel® FPGA IP 52. Intel FPGA HPS EMAC to Multi-rate PHY GMII Adapter Core 53. Intel FPGA MSI to GIC Generator Core 54. Cache Coherency Translator Intel® FPGA IP 55. Lightweight UART Core

37.1. Core Overview

The performance counter core with Avalon® interface enables relatively unobtrusive, real-time profiling of software programs. With the performance counter, you can accurately measure execution time taken by multiple sections of code. You need only add a single instruction at the beginning and end of each section to be measured.

The main benefit of using the performance counter core is the accuracy of the profiling results. Alternatives include the following approaches:

  • GNU profiler, gprofgprof provides broad low-precision timing information about the entire software system. It uses a substantial amount of RAM, and degrades the real-time performance. For many embedded applications, gprof distorts real-time behavior too much to be useful.
  • Interval timer peripheral—The interval timer is less intrusive than gprof. It can provide good results for narrowly targeted sections of code.

    The performance counter core is unobtrusive, requiring only a single instruction to start and stop profiling, and no RAM. It is appropriate for high-precision measurements of narrowly targeted sections of code.

    For further discussion of all three profiling methods, refer to the Profiling Nios II Systems section in the Embedded Design Handbook.

    The core is designed for use in Avalon® -based processor systems, such as a Nios® II or Nios® V processor system. Intel FPGA device drivers enable the Nios® II or Nios® V processor to use the performance counters.