Chapter 7: Introduction to AXI
As Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) became larger and more complex, vendors such as Xilinx began offering Intellectual Property (IP), designed and tested to accelerate design implementation. These first IPs often had simple interfaces, sometimes referred to as native interfaces. Xilinx offered early high-end parts with PowerPC cores and their own MicroBlaze cores, each of which had differing interfaces. When Xilinx adopted ARM processors as part of their Zynq family, they standardized the ARM processor interfaces, using the Advanced eXtensible Interface (AXI). In order to best use Xilinx IPs, we have already looked at the streaming interface. There are two other interfaces that are commonly used: AXI-Lite and AXI full.
By the end of this chapter, you'll have a good handle on the flavors of AXI and when to use them. You'll know how to create your own IPs using AXI to make integration with other IPs easier. Finally, you'll have...