A Sandbox for Exploring the OpenFire Processor

The OpenFire processor is an simple, open source solution for implementing a MicroBlaze-compliant Application-Specific Instruction-Set Processor (ASIP) on an FPGA. Its small size and adjustable feature set also make it attractive for Single Chip Multiple Processor (SCMP) research. Until now the OpenFire has been dependent upon a host MicroBlaze processor or custom user logic for access to external memory or peripherals. In order to make the OpenFire a self sufficient, convenient research platform for both ASIP and SCMP, the addition of a standard peripheral bus such as the On-Chip Peripheral Bus (OPB) is necessary. In this paper we implement a solution to this problem, compare our implementation to the standard MicroBlaze implementation, and discuss future work that we hope to acheive.