Although there are many 8051 derivatives on the market, sometimes it is desirable to have an application specific and self-made derivative tailored for the special needs of a particular application. While it is not economical feasible to develop an ASIC for most applications, there is an alternative now: Modern FPGA devices pave the way for building FPGA-based system on a chip (SoC) designs.

The development of a self-made 8051 derivate is easier than assumed. Numerous IP vendors offer 8051 processor cores that can easily be expanded by custom logic. The logic modules added can be addressed through D-segment addresses and therefore be accessed just like standard peripheral modules (timer, UART, etc.). Processor core and custom logic are linked together from a top-level design that is compiled using the development environment from the FPGA device vendor.

Hitex supports this approach with a complete set of tools.

The evaluation board for SoC51 eases the development of a FPGA-based SoC with am embedded 8051 processor core. It comes with a huge FPGA and numerous additional devices that help building the first working system. The board is designed to work together with a DProbeHS in-circuit emulator.

The DProbeHS and its options allow for a high level emulation of a FPGA-based SoC with an embedded 8051 processor core, provided that the core can be emulated at all.

Supported 8051 cores