Embedded Peripherals IP User Guide

ID 683130
Date 8/11/2025
Public
Document Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. Avalon® -ST Single-Clock and Dual-Clock FIFO Cores 3. Avalon® -ST Serial Peripheral Interface Core 4. SPI Core 5. SPI Agent/JTAG to Avalon® Host Bridge Cores 6. Intel eSPI Agent Core 7. eSPI to LPC Bridge Core 8. Ethernet MDIO Core 9. Intel FPGA 16550 Compatible UART Core 10. UART Core 11. JTAG UART Core 12. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mailbox Core 13. Intel FPGA Avalon® Mutex Core 14. Intel FPGA Avalon® I2C (Host) Core 15. Intel FPGA I2C Agent to Avalon® -MM Host Bridge Core 16. Intel FPGA Avalon® Compact Flash Core 17. EPCS/EPCQA Serial Flash Controller Core 18. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller Core 19. Intel FPGA Serial Flash Controller II Core 20. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller Core 21. Intel FPGA Generic QUAD SPI Controller II Core 22. Interval Timer Core 23. Intel FPGA Avalon FIFO Memory Core 24. On-Chip Memory (RAM and ROM) Intel FPGA IP 25. On-Chip Memory II (RAM or ROM) Intel FPGA IP 26. Optrex 16207 LCD Controller Core 27. PIO Core 28. PLL Cores 29. DMA Controller Core 30. Modular Scatter-Gather DMA Core 31. Scatter-Gather DMA Controller Core 32. SDRAM Controller Core 33. Tri-State SDRAM Core 34. Video Sync Generator and Pixel Converter Cores 35. Intel FPGA Interrupt Latency Counter Core 36. Performance Counter Unit Core 37. Vectored Interrupt Controller Core 38. Avalon® -ST Data Pattern Generator and Checker Cores 39. Avalon® -ST Test Pattern Generator and Checker Cores 40. System ID Peripheral Core 41. Avalon® Packets to Transactions Converter Core 42. Avalon® -ST Multiplexer and Demultiplexer Cores 43. Avalon® -ST Bytes to Packets and Packets to Bytes Converter IP 44. Avalon® -ST Delay Core 45. Avalon® -ST Round Robin Scheduler Core 46. Avalon® -ST Splitter Core 47. Avalon® -MM DDR Memory Half Rate Bridge Core 48. Intel FPGA GMII to RGMII Converter Core 49. HPS GMII to RGMII Adapter Intel® FPGA IP 50. Intel FPGA MII to RMII Converter Core 51. HPS GMII to TSE 1000BASE-X/SGMII PCS Bridge Core Intel® FPGA IP 52. Intel FPGA HPS EMAC to Multi-rate PHY GMII Adapter Core 53. Intel FPGA MSI to GIC Generator Core 54. Cache Coherency Translator Intel® FPGA IP 55. Altera ACE5-Lite Cache Coherency Translator 56. Lightweight UART Core

31.3.1. Functional Blocks and Configurations

The following sections describe each functional block and configuration.

Descriptor Processor

The descriptor processor reads descriptors from the descriptor list via its Avalon® Memory-Mapped (MM) read host port and pushes commands into the command FIFOs of the DMA read and write blocks. Each command includes the following fields to specify a transfer:

  • Source address
  • Destination address
  • Number of bytes to transfer
  • Increment read address after each transfer
  • Increment write address after each transfer
  • Generate start of packet (SOP) and end of packet (EOP)

    After each command is processed by the DMA read or write block, a status token containing information about the transfer such as the number of bytes actually written is returned to the descriptor processor, where it is written to the respective fields in the descriptor.

DMA Read Block

The DMA read block is used in memory-to-memory and memory-to-stream configurations. The block performs the following operations:

  • Reads commands from the input command FIFO.
  • Reads a block of memory via the Avalon® -MM read host port for each command.
  • Pushes data into the data FIFO.

    If burst transfer is enabled, an internal read FIFO with a depth of twice the maximum read burst size is instantiated. The DMA read block initiates burst reads only when the read FIFO has sufficient space to buffer the complete burst.

DMA Write Block

The DMA write block is used in memory-to-memory and stream-to-memory configurations. The block reads commands from its input command FIFO. For each command, the DMA write block reads data from its Avalon® -ST sink port and writes it to the Avalon® -MM host port.

If burst transfer is enabled, an internal write FIFO with a depth of twice the maximum write burst size is instantiated. Each burst write transfers a fixed amount of data equals to the write burst size, except for the last burst. In the last burst, the remaining data is transferred even if the amount of data is less than the write burst size.

Memory-to-Memory Configuration

Memory-to-memory configurations include all three blocks: descriptor processor, DMA read, and DMA write. An internal FIFO is also included to provide buffering and flow control for data transferred between the DMA read and write blocks.

The example below illustrates one possible memory-to-memory configuration with an internal Nios® II processor and descriptor list.

Figure 115. Example of Memory-to-Memory Configuration

Memory-to-Stream Configuration

Memory-to-stream configurations include the descriptor processor and DMA read blocks.

In this example, the Nios® II processor and descriptor table are in the FPGA. Data from an external DDR2 SDRAM is read by the SG-DMA controller and written to an on-chip streaming peripheral.

Figure 116. Example of Memory-to-Stream Configuration

Stream-to-Memory Configuration

Stream-to-memory configurations include the descriptor processor and DMA write blocks. This configuration is similar to the memory-to-stream configuration as the figure below illustrates.

Figure 117. Example of Stream-to-Memory Configuration