Designing SOCs with Configured Cores

6.16. Choosing a Diamond

All of the Diamond Standard Series processor cores are based on a general-purpose, 32-bit RISC ISA, so all of the cores can be assigned general-purpose tasks on an SOC. However, each of the Diamond processor cores has been shaped for specific applications:

• The 108Mini core is a good, general-purpose processor that’s been trimmed to minimum size. It’s intended for use as a control processor with code running almost exclusively out of the processor core’s local instruction memory. This instruction memory can be loaded by the 108Mini itself using load instructions directed to main memory over the processor core’s PIF bus or by an external agent using the 108Mini’s inbound-PIF feature. The 108Mini core sacrifices the performance-enhancing ...