Embedded Peripherals IP User Guide

ID 683130
Date 10/18/2021
Public

A newer version of this document is available. Customers should click here to go to the newest version.

Document Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Avalon® -ST Multi-Channel Shared Memory FIFO Core 3. Avalon® -ST Single-Clock and Dual-Clock FIFO Cores 4. Avalon® -ST Serial Peripheral Interface Core 5. SPI Core 6. SPI Agent/JTAG to Avalon® Host Bridge Cores 7. Intel eSPI Agent Core 8. eSPI to LPC Bridge Core 9. Ethernet MDIO Core 10. Intel FPGA 16550 Compatible UART Core 11. UART Core 12. JTAG UART Core 13. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mailbox Core 14. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mutex Core 15. Intel FPGA Avalon® I2C (Host) Core 16. Intel FPGA I2C Agent to Avalon® -MM Host Bridge Core 17. Intel FPGA Avalon® Compact Flash Core 18. EPCS/EPCQA Serial Flash Controller Core 19. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller Core 20. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller II Core 21. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller Core 22. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller II Core 23. Interval Timer Core 24. Intel FPGA Avalon FIFO Memory Core 25. On-Chip Memory (RAM and ROM) Core 26. On-Chip Memory II (RAM or ROM) 27. Optrex 16207 LCD Controller Core 28. PIO Core 29. PLL Cores 30. DMA Controller Core 31. Modular Scatter-Gather DMA Core 32. Scatter-Gather DMA Controller Core 33. SDRAM Controller Core 34. Tri-State SDRAM Core 35. Video Sync Generator and Pixel Converter Cores 36. Intel FPGA Interrupt Latency Counter Core 37. Performance Counter Unit Core 38. Vectored Interrupt Controller Core 39. Avalon® -ST Data Pattern Generator and Checker Cores 40. Avalon® -ST Test Pattern Generator and Checker Cores 41. System ID Peripheral Core 42. Avalon® Packets to Transactions Converter Core 43. Avalon® -ST Multiplexer and Demultiplexer Cores 44. Avalon® -ST Bytes to Packets and Packets to Bytes Converter Cores 45. Avalon® -ST Delay Core 46. Avalon® -ST Round Robin Scheduler Core 47. Avalon® -ST Splitter Core 48. Avalon® -MM DDR Memory Half Rate Bridge Core 49. Intel FPGA GMII to RGMII Converter Core 50. Intel FPGA MII to RMII Converter Core 51. Intel FPGA HPS GMII to TSE 1000BASE-X/SGMII PCS Bridge Core 52. Intel FPGA HPS EMAC to Multi-rate PHY GMII Adapter Core 53. Intel FPGA MSI to GIC Generator Core

38.1. Core Overview

The ability to process interrupt events quickly and to handle large numbers of interrupts can be critical to many embedded systems. The Vectored Interrupt Controller (VIC) is designed to address these requirements. The VIC can provide interrupt performance four to five times better than the Nios® II processor’s default internal interrupt controller (IIC). The VIC also allows expansion to a virtually unlimited number of interrupts, through daisy chaining.

The vectored interrupt controller (VIC) core serves the following main purposes:

  • Provides an interface to the interrupts in your system
  • Reduces interrupt overhead
  • Manages large numbers of interrupts

    The VIC offers high-performance, low-latency interrupt handling. The VIC prioritizes interrupts in hardware and outputs information about the highest-priority pending interrupt. When external interrupts occur in a system containing a VIC, the VIC determines the highest priority interrupt, determines the source that is requesting service, computes the requested handler address (RHA), and provides information, including the RHA, to the processor.

The VIC core contains the following interfaces:

  • Up to 32 interrupt input ports per VIC core
  • One Avalon® Memory-Mapped ( Avalon® -MM) agent interface to access the internal control status registers (CSR)
  • One Avalon® Streaming ( Avalon® -ST) interface output interface to pass information about the selected interrupt
  • One optional Avalon® -ST interface input interface to receive the Avalon® -ST output in systems with daisy-chained VICs

    The Sample System Layout Figure below outlines the basic layout of a system containing two VIC components.

Figure 113. Sample System Layout

The VIC core provides the following features:

To use the VIC, the processor in your system needs to have a matching Avalon® -ST interface to accept the interrupt information, such as the Nios® II processor's external interrupt controller interface.

The characteristics of each interrupt port are configured via the Avalon® -MM agent interface. When you need more than 32 interrupt ports, you can daisy chain multiple VICs together.

  • Separate programmable requested interrupt level (RIL) for each interrupt
  • Separate programmable requested register set (RRS) for each interrupt, to tell the interrupt handler which processor register set to use
  • Separate programmable requested non-maskable interrupt (RNMI) flag for each interrupt, to control whether each interrupt is maskable or non-maskable
  • Software-controlled priority arbitration scheme

    The VIC core is Platform Designer ready and integrates easily into any Platform Designer generated system. For the Nios® II processor, Intel provides Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) driver routines for the VIC core. Refer to to Intel FPGA HAL Software Programming Model section for HAL support details.