Fast has the following three main functions, and although Fast is faster in overall processing, the software can basically do the same things.
Without a cache, processing performance is likely to drop significantly, so if you have a license(*), it is safer to choose Fast.
(1) It has a pipeline
(2) It has a cache
(3) It can implement multiplication operations in hardware
Since Fast has a pipeline, the number of clocks required to execute a single instruction is less than that of Economy, and processing is faster.
It also has a cache, so the number of times to read and write instructions and data is reduced, resulting in faster processing.
When implementing multiplication, Fast can produce results faster than Economy because it can perform the operation in hardware rather than software.
The following document shows the performance measurement results of Nios® II.
(Reference) Nios® II Performance Benchmarks
(Nios II Processor Architecture Performance table)
Please also refer to the following page for information useful for speeding up Nios® II.
(Reference) Nios® II Speedup Methodology Measurement using Dhrystone 2.1
Nios® II/f (Fast core) is a paid IP; Nios® II/e (Economy core) is available free of charge.
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Category: Nios® II
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