About Nios II Processor
Altera's Nios® II processor, the world's most versatile processor, according to Gartner Research, is the most widely used soft processor in the FPGA industry. This soft processor delivers unprecedented flexibility for your cost-sensitive, real-time, safety-critical (DO-254), ASIC-optimized, and applications processing needs. The Nios II processor supports all Altera® FPGA and HardCopy® ASIC device families, and is also available for standard-cell ASICs through Synopsys.
What makes the Nios II processor the world's most versatile processor?
| Application | Nios II Processor Core |
Vendor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Altera | |||
| Power and cost sensitive | Nios II economy core | Altera | With as low as 600 logic elements, the Nios II economy processor core is ideal for microcontroller applications. The Nios II economy processor core, software tools, and device drivers are offered free of charge. |
| Real time | Nios II standard and fast core | Altera | With unique hardware real-time features such as custom instructions (ability to use FPGA hardware to accelerate a function), vector interrupt controller, tightly coupled memory as well as support for industry-leading real-time operating systems, the Nios II standard and fast processor cores meet both your hard and soft real-time requirements. |
| Applications processing | Nios II fast core | Altera | With a simple configuration option, the Nios II fast processor core can use a memory management unit (MMU) to run embedded Linux. Both open source and commercially supported versions of Linux for Nios II processors are available. |
| Altera Embedded Alliance | |||
| Safety critical | Nios II SC core | HCell | Certify your design for DO-254 compliance by using the Nios II Safety Critical procesor core along with the DO-254 compliance design services offered by HCell. |
| ASIC | Nios II DesignWare IP | Synopsys | Take your embedded design to standard-cell ASIC through Synopsys using the Synopsys Nios II DesignWare IP core. |
- Family of 3 configurable 32-bit embedded processors for Altera FPGAs and HardCopy ASICs
- Fast (/f core): optimized for highest performance, optional MMU, or memory protection unit (MPU)
- Economy (/e core): optimized for smallest size
- Standard (/s core): balanced in performance and size
- All support
- Up to 256 custom instructions
- Up to four tightly coupled memories (TCM)
- Configurable debug core
- C-to-Hardware (C2H) Acceleration Compiler to convert ANSI C algorithms to hardware accelerators
- Qsys-ready intellectual property (IP) core
- Rich portfolio of embedded peripheral cores (timer, UART, direct memory access (DMA), Ethernet, etc.)
- Nios II Embedded Design Suite (EDS): Complete embedded development suite (compiler, debugger, Nios II Integrated Development Environment (IDE), drivers, hardware abstraction layer (HAL))
- Low-cost IP license; no-cost evaluation
Download the latest Nios II processor performance benchmarks data sheet.
See what's new in the latest release.
Broad Embedded Software Tools Support
Everything you need to develop robust software applications is provided for you in the Nios II EDS. You'll feel right at home with the Eclipse-based Nios II Build Tools for Eclipse and a full range of software and operating system support provided by Altera and its partners. Need to boost performance? No problem. You can quickly accelerate your ANSI C application using the Nios II C2H Acceleration Compiler.
Get Started Now
Start your design today with the Nios II processor by purchasing one of the many low cost evaluation or development kits available for the Nios II processor. Download a design example, read product literature, or take an instructor-led training class to get started. To ship design featuring the Nios II processor, you will need to purchase a license for the Nios II processor such as the Embedded IP Suite.
- Download Nios II processor literature
- Download the Nios II EDS (now included with the free Quartus® II Web Edition software)
- Jump-start your embedded designs with Nios II development kits
- Take a Nios II processor training course
- Get started with a Nios II processor design example
- Accelerate time-critical software functions with the Nios II C2H Compiler
- Visit the Nios II processor forum in the Altera Forum and interact with other Nios II processor designers
- Visit the Embedded Processing sections in the Altera Wiki
