OpenBus Interconnect Component
Figure 1. The OpenBus
Interconnect component.
The Interconnect component provides a means of accessing one or more peripheral devices over a single OpenBus interface. It connects directly to the IO or MEM ports of a processor component, facilitating communication with I/O peripherals or physical memory devices, respectively.
The Interconnect component can be used with any of the 32-bit processors supported by, and available for use in, an OpenBus System.
So just what makes the use of this intermediary component beneficial in an OpenBus System? This a good question and one that can be answered by several key functions that the Interconnect component performs – functions which make life much easier in terms of implementing a design within the OpenBus System:
- Allows the definition of a base address for a connected slave peripheral device (I/O or memory), which is then used to map that device into the processor's address space.
- Allows for the connection of multiple slave peripheral devices (I/O or memory), all of which are accessed by the processor over a single bus.
- Allows for the connection of slave peripheral I/O devices that have different data bus widths (8-, 16- or 32-bit).
- Handles the address mapping from the processor to the slave peripheral device (I/O or memory). This involves not only the mode of addressing used (byte addressing or word addressing) but also the address bus width – the number of bits required to drive the connected slave device.
In comparison to its counterpart (WB_INTERCON) in the schematic world, the OpenBus System streamlines the use of the Interconnect component, with much of the configuration handled for you 'behind the scenes'.
Features at-a-glance
- Completely configurable from the OpenBus System document
- 1-to-n multiplexing (1 slave interface port, multiple master interface ports)
- Ability to control decode address width, with comparator hardware generated automatically
- Ability to define specific mapping into processor address space
- 8-, 16- and 32-bit slave peripheral support
Availability
The Interconnect component can be found in the Connectors region of the OpenBus Palette panel.
Working with the Interconnect
Use the following links to learn about the Interconnect component in greater detail: