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Board photo

Board photo

M4 Processor

M4 is the Soviet replica of the military version LSI-11M by United Technologies Norden Systems Inc. Originally designed in the first half of 1970th for the avionics was used as the processor for the aircraft reconnaissance radar module. The massive aluminum heatsink is built-in to PCB providing operation in the stratosphere.

The M4 processor supports PDP-11 basic instruction set, extended instruction set (EIS), and floating instruction set (EIS), no MMU is implemented, 32KB of RAM is integrated onboard, refresh is performed by microcode on periodic requests. The microcode provides the standard built-in DEC ODT.

The processor is built on top of the AMD Am2900 bit-slice series with 56x1K horizontal microcode, it is running at approximately 4MHz microcode clock frequency and consumes 30W of power. In average it takes 5 clocks per register-register PDP-11 instructions.

There are some useful references to further readings:

Processor Architecture

Processor architecture

Directory structure

\hdl

  • the directory contains HDL-related materials, sources, and sample projects for Quartus and ISE. There are three models: original asynchronous, refactored synchronous, and Wishbone compatible

\hdl\org

  • asynchronous Verilog HDL model is as close as possible to the original gate-level schematics. In practice can be used for modeling purposes only, because the processor contains latches (note, it differs from flip-flop), those work in a non-reliable fashion on synchronous FPGAs. Also model does not contain gate and line delays (converted to the digital synchronous ones), in some simulating environments it can be very critical. Nonetheless, this model is included in the package as a demo of the closest possible approximation to the original board schematics. Maybe not synthesizable with some tools, simulation only.

\hdl\syn

  • synchronous Verilog HDL model, microinstruction sequencer and ALUs are refactored to unified units, the frontend bus is Q-Bus refactored to be synchronous, uses only direct clock to operate, does not contain latches, and can be synthesized for synchronous FPGAs. All internal and external timings are precisely the same as in an asynchronous original model with precision to period of high-frequency clock.

\hdl\wbc

  • synchronous Wishbone compatible version of M4 processor, is FPGA-optimized, follows the original command execution timings, is intended for SoC building.

\cad\am4 (moved to dedicated repo)

  • partially restored board topology and complete schematics in PCAD-2000 format
  • schematics in pdf

\rom

  • read out microcode ROM images
  • the microcode fields definition file
  • the tool Am2900 M4 meta disassembler written in Phyton
  • the universal Am2900 meta assembler written in Phyton, syntax follows AmdAsm80
  • the microcode word cheetsheet

\tst

  • software sources to test PDP-11 instructions and architecture (interrupts, exceptions, etc.)

How to simulate

  • run "tst\build.bat pitest" to prebuild desired test software image (pitest is a sample)
  • run ModelSim simulator
  • set "am4/hdl/org/sim/de0" as working directory in ModelSim (File->Change Directory)
  • execute "do run.do" console command
  • wait, simulation may take some time till complete
  • see the results in waveform and console output

Implemented resources

  • RAM 8Kx16bit at 0000008 with initialized content from test.mif file
  • TTY at 1775608, 608/648 vector interrupts, tx/rx with cts/rts handshake, 115200/8/N/1, RS-232 levels (board dependent).
  • 50Hz system timer interrupt (IRQ2, edge sensitive, vector 1008), enabled by board switch[0], if timer is enabled the board led[0] lights
  • 4x7-segment display, segments attached to output registers at 1777148/1777158, see the test software source for the details
  • switches and buttons can be read from input register at 1777148
  • board button[0] is reset, short press less than 1 sec causes system reset, long press over 1 second simulates power reset (excluding RAM content)

M4 project status

Ready to integrate into SoC design. The M4 processor models pass all the factory tests VKAxxx intended to test original LSI-11, except the PSW[6:5] keeping on FIS instructions. M4 preserves these bits, LSI-11 usually returns zeroes on mftp instruction.

The M4 board schematics is updated and Revision 3 seems to be final one.

Fmax and FPGA resources

  • Wishbone compatible M4 prociessor core
  • speed optimization chosen
  • slow model, worst corner

All results are just approximate estimations by synthesis tools (Quartus/XST/Tang Dynasty) on sample projects (target frequency in .sdc was set to 50MHz, relaxed time-driven P&R)

Board FPGA Family Fmax LUTs FFs MEM
DE0 EP3C16F484C6N Cyclone III 66 MHz 1270 491 7 M9K
DE1 EP2C20F484C7N Cyclone II 52 MHz 1491 477 14 M4K
DE2-115 EP4CE115F29C7N Cyclone IV 60 MHz 1598 492 7 M9K
AX309 XC6SLX9FTG256-2 Spartan 6 64 MHz 927 464 7 BR8
DE10-LT 10M50DAF484C7G Max 10 58 MHz 1195 470 7 M9K
QC5 5CEFA2F23I7N Cyclone V 73 MHz 554 553 6 M10K
QC10 10CL006U256CN8 Cyclone 10 55 MHz 1193 471 7 M9K
EG4 EG4S20BG256 Eagle EG4S20 59 MHz 1021 392 7 M9K
QA7 XC7A35TFTG256-1 Artix 7 90 MHz 631 413 2 BR
QK7 XC7K325TFFG676-1 Kintex 7 114 MHz 620 404 6 BR