⇡ Tutorial for the v0.4 lowRISC release

Release notes

Release notes

  • Rocket-core (Chisel)
    • Add tag cache and improved security features.
  • Software environment
    • Most of the previous bare-metal program functionality integrated into one 64K executable
    • Implement 4-bit read/write SD-mode access to memory cards in Linux.
    • Console output appears on serial port and VGA screen in parallel.
    • Bare metal booting kernel in 4-bit SD-mode supported.
  • lowRISC-chip
    • Add Minion core (Pulpino based) to control SD-card, keyboard, and VGA display.
    • Standalone operation (without personal computer) possible.
    • VGA-compatible text display.
    • USB-keyboard (PS/2 compatible)
  • Design environment
    • Updated demo images for NEXYS4-DDR FPGA.
    • Add cfgmem and program-cfgmem targets to fpga Makefile.
  • Missing from this release vs the previous
    • Bitstream configuration from SD-card is no longer convenient.
    • Quad SPI memory execute-in-place is missing from initial demo images.

Previous releases