Input/output peripheral devices control through serial communication using MicroBlaze processor

The microprocessors available for use in Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) with Xilinx EDK (Embedded Development Kit) software tools can be divided into two broad categories. There are soft-core microprocessors (MicroBlaze) and the hard-core embedded microprocessor (PowerPC). Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS) provides an integrated environment for creating software and hardware specification flows for embedded processor systems based on MicroBlaze and PowerPC processors. MicroBlaze is a 32-bit RISC soft-core (synthesizable) processor core that enables embedded developers to tune performance to match the requirements of target applications. XPS offers customization of tool flow configuration options and provides a graphical system editor for connection of processors, peripherals, and buses. XPS tool can create a simple processor system and the process of adding a custom OPB peripheral to that processor system by using the Import Peripheral Wizard. The EDK allows the user to incorporate soft-core processors (MicroBlaze or PicoBlaze) to interface the built-in PowerPC processors with the reconfigurable FPGA resources. Such processors can also be used to interface the hardware system to a variety of input/output peripheral devices needed to supply input data to the hardware system through serial communication and/or to display the results of processing.