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4.6.1.2. Floating-Point Hardware Custom Instruction
Floating-Point Hardware Custom Instruction
The Nios II processor offers a set of optional predefined custom instructions that implement floating-point arithmetic operations. You can include these custom instructions to support computation-intensive floating-point applications.
The basic set of floating-point custom instructions includes single precision (32-bit) floating-point addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Floating-point division is available as an extension to the basic instruction set. The best choice for your hardware design depends on a balance among floating-point usage, hardware resource usage, and performance.
If the target device includes on-chip multiplier blocks, the floating-point custom instructions incorporate them as needed. If there are no on-chip multiplier blocks, the floating-point custom instructions are entirely based on general-purpose logic elements.
To add the floating-point custom instructions to the Nios II processor in Qsys, select Floating Point Hardware under Custom Instruction Modules on the Component Library tab, and click Add. By default, Qsys includes floating-point addition, subtraction, and multiplication, but omit the more resource intensive floating-point division. The Floating Point Hardware parameter editor appears, giving you the option to include the floating-point division hardware.
Name | Values | Description |
---|---|---|
Use floating point division hardware | On/Off | Specifies inclusion of floating-point division hardware. |
Turn on Use floating point division hardware to include floating-point division hardware. The floating-point division hardware requires more resources than the other instructions, so you might wish to omit it if your application does not make heavy use of floating-point division.
Click Finish to add the floating-point custom instructions to the Nios II processor.
For more information about the floating-point custom instructions, refer to the Processor Architecture chapter of the Nios II Processor Reference Handbook.