Design Of SOPC Bus Matrix Based On AXI Protocol

Bus matrix based on AMBA AXI protocol is used for interconnection of each SOPC subsystem. It plays an important role in design of SOPC which integrated with many components such as FPGA, CPU and other commonly used peripherals. The design of Bus matrix is not only focused on the interconnection of CPU and peripherals, but also CPU and FPGA. Furthermore, high scalability of FPGA connected to bus matrix is another key point.This article introduces the background and research significance of the bus matrix design firstly. And then describes the key technology route map include SOPC technology, AMBA AXI protocol and common used bus matrix architecture. After that, advantages and disadvantages of different architecture are analyzed.This article chose point-to-point architecture mixed shared bus architecture to design the bus matrix. For each channel of five AXI protocol, optimal design for arbiter and decoder module is achieved. Arbiter module is designed by fixed priority and combined round-robin priority. Besides, bridges module for AXI protocol and AHB/APB protocol is also analyzed. In this way, available modules compatible to AHB/APB interface now can be used in the bus matrix design.Two platforms for simulation and verification of bus matrix are applied, which one is based on AMBA VIP component and another is based on C program language. Based on AMBA VIP component simulation platforms can be used for functional correctness of bus matrix, and another for the correctness of the integration and performance. All key features are tested and verified. The result proves the design correctly.Finally, this article introduces the synthesis of bus matrix and the backend design of the SOPC chip based on SMIC 65 nm. Some basic applications using the SOPC chip are illustrated.