Nios II Classic Processor Reference Guide

ID 683620
Date 10/28/2016
Public
Document Table of Contents

2.6.1.3. Data Master Port

The Nios II data bus is implemented as a 32-bit Avalon® -MM master port. The data master port performs two functions:
  • Read data from memory or a peripheral when the processor executes a load instruction
  • Write data to memory or a peripheral when the processor executes a store instruction

Byte-enable signals on the master port specify which of the four byte-lane(s) to write during store operations. When the Nios II core is configured with a data cache line size greater than four bytes, the data master port supports pipelined Avalon® -MM transfers. When the data cache line size is only four bytes, any memory pipeline latency is perceived by the data master port as wait states. Load and store operations can complete in a single clock cycle when the data master port is connected to zero-wait-state memory.

The Nios II architecture supports on-chip cache memory for improving average data transfer performance when accessing slower memory. Refer to the "Cache Memory" section of this chapter for details.

The Nios II architecture supports tightly-coupled memory, which provides guaranteed low-latency access to on-chip memory. Refer to "Tightly-Coupled Memory" section of this chapter for details.