Lattice SoC Ecosystem
The Lattice SoC ecosystem is a modular, low-power platform built around RISC-V soft-core processors and a rich set of peripheral IP blocks, designed to accelerate embedded development across industrial, automotive, and edge AI applications. It integrates seamlessly with the Propel Design Environment for drag-and-drop SoC creation, supports popular RTOS like Zephyr and FreeRTOS, and offers secure boot and root-of-trust capabilities via the Sentry stack. With reference designs, training resources, and open-source support, the ecosystem enables rapid prototyping and deployment of scalable, secure, and efficient FPGA-based solutions.
Software Development Tools
To be able to use RISC-V in Lattice FPGA designs, developers rely on Lattice Propel, a powerful and integrated development environment that streamlines both hardware and software design workflows. Propel enables engineers to build custom processor systems based on RISC-V architecture by providing a suite of graphical and command-line tools that simplify the creation, configuration, and debugging of embedded systems. Whether you're designing the hardware architecture using soft IP cores or writing firmware for your application, Propel offers a unified platform that accelerates development, reduces complexity, and ensures compatibility across Lattice’s FPGA families. This makes it an essential tool for implementing open-source RISC-V processors in edge computing, industrial automation, and AI-driven applications.
An Embedded Operating System (Embedded OS) is a specialized software layer that manages hardware resources and provides essential services for applications running on embedded systems. These systems are typically designed for specific tasks and operate under strict constraints in terms of power, memory, and performance.
In RISC-V-based embedded designs, the embedded OS plays a critical role in enabling multitasking, hardware abstraction, and real-time responsiveness. Depending on the complexity of the application, developers may choose between:
- Zephyr RTOS
A scalable, open-source real-time operating system designed for resource-constrained devices. It supports multitasking, device drivers, and connectivity features ideal for IoT and industrial applications.
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U-Boot Bootloader
A flexible and widely used bootloader that initializes hardware and loads the operating system. In RISC-V systems, it operates in machine mode (M-mode) or supervisor mode (S-mode), often working with OpenSBI to manage the boot flow.
- Bare Metal (Supported by Propel)
Lattice FPGA Bare-metal HAL driver is the ultimate solution for streamlined hardware interaction in embedded systems. Designed for developers seeking unparalleled control and efficiency, Lattice HAL driver provides a standardized interface for accessing FPGA peripherals without the need for an underlying operating system. It offers optimized functions and data structures for seamless integration into bare-metal environments, ensuring high performance and flexibility, empower applications with direct, low-level access to FPGA hardware resources.
- FreeRTOS (Supported by Propel)
A Real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system that executes tasks with predictability and determinism. It is designed to execute tasks in a quick and effective manner. RTOS has a small footprint which makes it suitable for embedded systems, particularly for mission or safety critical systems.
The FreeRTOS open-source project is one of the market leading RTOS available today. Lattice Semiconductor offers FreeRTOS for its RISC-V RX embedded processor.
The FreeRTOS software, which includes the FreeRTOS kernel and set of libraries are included in Lattice Propel 2022.1 onwards. The FreeRTOS software is distributed under MIT license. Refer to FreeRTOS™ Website for further information.
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