Nios® V Processor Reference Manual

ID 683632
Date 5/26/2023
Public

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Document Table of Contents

2.1. Processor Performance Benchmarks

Table 2.   Nios® V/m Processor Performance Benchmarks in Intel FPGA Devices for Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software
FPGA Used fMAX (MHz) Logic Size (ALM) Architecture Performance
DMIPS/MHz Ratio CoreMark/MHz Ratio
Intel® Cyclone® 10 252.13 1645 0.567 0.400
Intel® Arria® 10 279.43 1662
Intel® Stratix® 10 323.46 1797
Intel Agilex® 7 397.512 1763
Table 3.  Benchmark Parameters for Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software
Parameter Settings/Description
Intel® Quartus® Prime seed Maximum performance result are based on 10 seed sweep from Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software version 23.1.
Device speed grade Fastest speed grade from each Intel FPGA device family.
Defined peripherals
  • Nios® V/m processor core (without debug module).
  • 128 KB on-chip memory for the instruction and data bus.
  • JTAG UART Intel® FPGA IP.
Toolchain Version
  • riscv32-unknown-elf-gcc (GCC) version 12.1.0
  • CMake Version: 3.23.2
Compiler configuration
  • Compiler flags: -03
  • Assembler options: -Wa -gdwarf2
  • Compile options: -Wall -Wformat-security -march=rv32ia -mabi=ilp32
Table 4.   Nios® V/m Processor Performance Benchmarks in Intel FPGA Devices for Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition Software
FPGA Used fMAX (MHz) Logic Size Architecture Performance
DMIPS/MHz Ratio CoreMark/MHz Ratio
Intel® Cyclone® IV E 139.63 2958 (LE) 0.572 0.402
Intel® Cyclone® V 162.1 1302.9 (ALM)
Intel® Arria® V 198.65 1308.5 (ALM)
Intel® Arria® V GZ 266.52 1263.9 (ALM)
Intel® Stratix® V 329.38 1280.3 (ALM)
Intel® Cyclone® 10 LP 134.44 2946 (LE)
Intel® Arria® 10 325.41 1283.1 (ALM)
Intel® MAX® 10 105.89 2997 (LE)
Table 5.  Benchmark Parameters for Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition Software
Parameter Settings/Description
Intel® Quartus® Prime seed Maximum performance result are based on 10 seed sweep from Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition software version 22.3.
Device speed grade Fastest speed grade from each Intel FPGA device family.
Defined peripherals
  • Nios® V/m processor core
  • 4 KB on-chip memory for the instruction bus
  • 4 KB on-chip memory for data bus
  • Avalon® Memory-Mapped Pipeline Bridge
Toolchain Version
  • riscv32-unknown-elf-gcc (GCC) version 11.2.0
  • CMake Version: 3.23.2
Compiler configuration
  • Compiler flags: -03
  • Assembler options: -Wa -gdwarf2
  • Compile options: -Wall -Wformat-security -march=rv32ia -mabi=ilp32
Intel uses the same Intel® Quartus® Prime design example for maximum performance benchmark(fMAX) and logic size benchmarks. However, the compiler settings are different for each benchmarks:
  • fMAX benchmark: superior_performance_optimized_placement_effort
  • Logic size benchmark: area_aggressive
Note: Results may vary depending on the version of the Intel® Quartus® Prime software, the version of the Nios® V processor, compiler version, target device and the configuration of the processor. Additionally, any changes to the system logic design might change the performance and LE usage. All results are generated from design built with Platform Designer.