Processor Selector

Processor Category	Cost- and Power-Sensitive Processors			Real-Time Processors		Applications Processors
*Table 1. Processor Selection by System Requirements*
Features	ARM^® Cortex^TM- M1	V1 ColdFire	Nios^® II Economy	Nios II Standard	Nios II Fast	MP32	ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore
Maximum performance efficiency (MIPS⁽¹⁾ per MHz)	-	0.93	0.15	0.64	1.13	1.15	2.5
Maximum performance (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz) Stratix^® series	160 at 200	135 at 145	50 at 330	170 at 270	340 at 290	300 at 290	-
Maximum performance (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz) Arria^® SoC	-	84 at 90	45 at 300	115 at 180	270 at 240	300 at 290	4,000 at 800 ⁽²⁾
Maximum performance (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz) Cyclone^® SoC	80 at 100	84 at 90	30 at 175	90 at 145	195 at 175	140 at 145	4,000 at 800 ⁽²⁾
Maximum performance (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz) HardCopy^® series	-	246 at 265	45 at 290	180 at 285	345 at 305	300 at 290	-
16-/32-bit instruction set support	16 and 32	16, 32, and 48	32	32	32	32	32, 16-bit Thumb/Thumb2
Level 1 instruction cache	-	-	-	Configurable	Configurable	Configurable	32 KB
Level 1 data cache	-	-	-	-	Configurable	64 KB	32 KB
Level 2 cache	-	-	-	-	-	-	512 KB
Memory management unit	-	-	-	-	Yes	Yes	Yes
Floating-point unit	-	-	-	Floating-point custom instruction	Floating-point custom instruction	-	Double precision
Vector interrupt controller	Yes	-	-	Yes	Yes	-	-
Tightly coupled memory	Up to 64K	-	-	Configurable	Configurable	-	-
Custom instruction interface	-	-	Up to 256	Up to 256	Up to 256	-	-
Equivalent logic elements	2,500	6,800	600	1,200	1,800 – 3,200	5,500	HPS

Processor Category	Cost- and Power-Sensitive Processors			Real-Time Processors		Applications Processors
**Table 2. Processor Performance (MIPS at f_MAX) by Device***
Devices	ARM Cortex-M1	V1 ColdFire	Nios II Economy	Nios II Standard	Nios II Fast	MP32	ARM Cortex-A9
Cyclone III (MIPS^⁽¹⁾at MHz)	80 at 145	84 at 90	30 at 215	90 at 145	195 at 175	140 at 145	-
Cyclone III LS (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	65 at 70	20 at 150	70 at 110	160 at 140	140 at 145	-
Cyclone IV GX (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	70 at 75	30 at 175	70 at 110	190 at 165	N/A	-
Arria II GX (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	84 at 90	45 at 300	115 at 180	270 at 240	90 at 145	-
Stratix III (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	150 at 230	104 at 112	48 at 340	140 at 230	340 at 290	300 at 290	-
Stratix IV (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	135 at 145	50 at 340	155 at 240	340 at 290	300 at 290	-
Stratix V (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	135 at 145	50 at 330	170 at 270	320 at 280	-	-
HardCopy II (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	182 at 196	50 at 320	130 at 130	230 at 200	-	-
HardCopy III (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	247 at 265	30 at 210	140 at 220	260 at 230	-	-
HardCopy IV (MIPS^⁽¹⁾ at MHz)	-	242 at 260	45 at 290	180 at 285	345 at 305	-	-

Notes for Table 1 and Table 2:

Processor Category		Low-Cost Processors		Real Time	Applications Processor
*Table 3. Processor Selector by Operating System Support*
Features	Supplier	ARM Cortex-M1	V1 ColdFire	Nios II	MP32	ARM Cortex-A9
eCos	eCosCentric	-	-	Yes	-	-
eCos (Zylin)	Zylin	-	-	Yes	-	-
embOS	Segger	-	Yes	Yes	-	-
Erika Enterprice	Evidence	-	-	Yes	-	-
Euros RTOS	Euros	-	-	Yes	-	-
Linux	Wind River	-	-	Yes	-	-
Linux	Timesys	-	-	Yes	-	-
Linux	SLS	-	-	Yes	-	-
Linux	Open Source	-	-	Yes	-	Yes
MicroC/OS-II	Micrium	-	-	Yes	-	-
oSCAN	Vector	-	-	Yes	-	-
ThreadX	Express Logic	-	Yes	Yes	-	-
uCLinux	Open Source	-	-	Yes	-	-
VxWorks	Wind River	-	-	No	Yes	Yes