NDS32

NDS32 is a new high-performance 32-bit RISC microprocessor core.

http://www.andestech.com/

AndeStar ISA

AndeStar is a patent-pending 16-bit/32-bit mixed-length instruction set to achieve optimal system performance, code density, and power efficiency.

It contains the following features:

  • Intermixable 32-bit and 16-bit instruction sets without the need for mode switch.

  • 16-bit instructions as a frequently used subset of 32-bit instructions.

  • RISC-style register-based instruction set.

  • 32 32-bit General Purpose Registers (GPR).

  • Upto 1024 User Special Registers (USR) for existing and extension instructions.

  • Rich load/store instructions for…

    • Single memory access with base address update.

    • Multiple aligned and unaligned memory accesses for memory copy and stack operations.

    • Data prefetch to improve data cache performance.

    • Non-bus locking synchronization instructions.

  • PC relative jump and PC read instructions for efficient position independent code.

  • Multiply-add and multiple-sub with 64-bit accumulator.

  • Instruction for efficient power management.

  • Bi-endian support.

  • Three instruction extension space for application acceleration:

    • Performance extension.

    • Andes future extensions (for floating-point, multimedia, etc.)

    • Customer extensions.

AndesCore CPU

Andes Technology has 4 families of CPU cores: N12, N10, N9, N8.

For details about N12 CPU family, please check below N1213 features. N1213 is a configurable hard/soft core of NDS32’s N12 CPU family.

N1213 Features

CPU Core

  • 16-/32-bit mixable instruction format.

  • 32 general-purpose 32-bit registers.

  • 8-stage pipeline.

  • Dynamic branch prediction.

  • 32/64/128/256 BTB.

  • Return address stack (RAS).

  • Vector interrupts for internal/external. interrupt controller with 6 hardware interrupt signals.

  • 3 HW-level nested interruptions.

  • User and super-user mode support.

  • Memory-mapped I/O.

  • Address space up to 4GB.

Memory Management Unit
  • TLB

    • 4/8-entry fully associative iTLB/dTLB.

    • 32/64/128-entry 4-way set-associati.ve main TLB.

    • TLB locking support

  • Optional hardware page table walker.

  • Two groups of page size support.

    • 4KB & 1MB.

    • 8KB & 1MB.

Memory Subsystem
  • I & D cache.

    • Virtually indexed and physically tagged.

    • Cache size: 8KB/16KB/32KB/64KB.

    • Cache line size: 16B/32B.

    • Set associativity: 2-way, 4-way or direct-mapped.

    • Cache locking support.

  • I & D local memory (LM).

    • Size: 4KB to 1MB.

    • Bank numbers: 1 or 2.

    • Optional 1D/2D DMA engine.

    • Internal or external to CPU core.

Bus Interface

  • Synchronous/Asynchronous AHB bus: 0, 1 or 2 ports.

  • Synchronous High speed memory port. (HSMP): 0, 1 or 2 ports.

Debug

  • JTAG debug interface.

  • Embedded debug module (EDM).

  • Optional embedded program tracer interface.

Miscellaneous

  • Programmable data endian control.

  • Performance monitoring mechanism.

The NDS32 ports of u-boot, the Linux kernel, the GNU toolchain and other associated software are actively supported by Andes Technology Corporation.