LatticeMico8 Open, Free 8-bit Soft Microcontroller

The LatticeMico8 is an 8-bit microcontroller optimized and fully tested for the MachXO2^TM family of Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs). It can also be used as a reference design for the other families of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Combining a full 18-bit wide instruction set with 32 general purpose registers, the LatticeMico8 is suitable for a wide variety of markets, including communications, consumer, computer, medical, industrial, and automotive. The core consumes minimal device resources, less than 200 Look Up Tables (LUTs) in the smallest configuration, while maintaining a broad feature set.

The LatticeMico8 is licensed under a new open intellectual property (IP) core license, the first such license offered by any FPGA supplier. The main benefits of using open source IP are greater flexibility, improved portability, and no cost. This new agreement provides all the benefits of standard open source and allows users to mix proprietary designs with the open source core. Additionally, it allows for the distribution of designs in bitstream or FPGA format without accompanying it with a copy of the license.

LatticeMico8 Block Diagram

Features

• Innovative Open IP Core License
• Efficient Architecture and Broad Feature Set
  • 18-bit Wide Instructions
  • Configurable 16 or 32 General Purpose Registers
  • Configurable Instruction Memory (PROM)
    • Internal or external through Wishbone Interface
    • Configurable to accomodate 256, 512, 1K, 2K or 4K instructions
  • Scratchpad Memory
    • Internal or external through Wishbone Interface
    • Configurable  up to 4 Gigabytes using paging (256 bytes per page)
  • Mimimum two cycles per instruction
  • Configurable 8, 16, or 32-deep call stack
  • Support for up to 8 external interrupts
  • Integrated hardware loader to optionally initialize PROM and Scratch pd for an external non-volatile mem
• Wishbone Peripheral Components:
  • GPIO, UART, DMA Controller, SPI Flash Controller, MachXO2 EFB (I2C, SPI, Timer)

Resource Utilization¹

The following table shows a few of the many possible configurations. This version of the LatticeMico8 core can be targeted to any Lattice FPGA as a reference design, too.

* SP = Scratch Pad

¹These numbers may vary as you change the operating conditions.

For infomation about the LatticeMico8 for the other FPGA families, please  contact your  local Lattice Sales Office
 

Development Tools

LatticeMico System is to be used to implement a LatticeMico8 micro-controller system with attached peripheral components. It is based on the Eclipse C/C++ Development Tools environment, which is an industry open-source development and application framework for building software. For more details please go to LatticeMico System Development Tools
 

Reference Design Archive

Please refer to the archive page for more information about the previous versions of LatticeMico8 that were released as reference designs LatticeMico8 Archive