MB-LITE: A robust, light-weight soft-core implementation of the MicroBlaze architecture

Due to the ever increasing number of microprocessors which can be integrated in very large systems on chip the need for robust, easily modifiable microprocessors has emerged. Within this paper a light-weight cycle compatible implementation of the MicroBlaze architecture called MB-LITE is presented in an attempt to fill the gap in quality between commercial and open source processors. Experimental results showed that MB-LITE obtains very high performance compared with other open source processors while using very few hardware resources. The microprocessor can be easily extended with existing IP thanks to an easily configurable data memory bus and a wishbone bus adapter. All components are modular to optimize design reuse and are developed using a two-process design methodology for improved performance, simulation and synthesis speeds. All components have been thoroughly tested and verified on a FPGA. Currently an architecture with four MB-LITE cores in a NoC architecture is in development which will be implemented in 90 nm process technology.