Communication interface between primary processor and coprocessor and control method thereof

Abstract

The invention relates to a communication interface between a primary processor and a coprocessor. The communication interface is used for supporting the primary processor to access the coprocessor through an AHB bus and comprises a control word register and a status word register, wherein the control word register is used for receiving a command sent from the primary processor to the coprocessor and selecting interface modes; the status word register is used for receiving the status information sent from the coprocessor for the primary processor to inquire; the interface modes comprise an interface mode A and an interface mode B; the interface mode A is communicated with the primary processor by inquiring a status bit of the coprocessor; and the interface mode B is communicated with the primary processor by stopping and waiting. Due to the adoption of the technical scheme of the invention, a user can select the interface mode A or the interface mode B by configuring a certain bit of the control register of the coprocessor according to specific application occasions, so that the aim of improving the utilization ratio of a bus resource or reducing the power consumption of a system is fulfilled.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the field of integrated circuit design, in particular to an interface for realizing communication between a main processor and a co-processor and a control method thereof. Background technique [0002] A coprocessor is a processor that extends the main processor and assists the main processor in completing special application processing for different applications and requirements. It is usually a dedicated single-purpose processor running under the direction of the main processor, such as a floating point processor, elliptic encryption coprocessor, graphics coprocessor, and so on. [0003] Traditionally, the communication interface between the main processor and the coprocessor adopts a more complicated and tightly coupled method. For example, ARM (Advanced RISC Machines, Advanced Reduced Instruction Set Processor) and its coprocessor interface are interconnected and communicated through a dedicated coprocessor interface. The...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, these interface methods have their own limitations in some applications. For example, when using the method of querying the status bits of the coprocessor, the main processor will continuously query the status bits of the coprocessor, so that It will bring unnecessary power consumption, and it will also bring some troubles to software personnel programming; while using the coprocessor to kill the bus, although it can simplify the software writing work and reduce power consumption, but the coprocessor is in the Before the processing is completed, the bus will be pulled to death and unable to respond to other components, which will greatly reduce the utilization of bus resources

Images