SOPC Builder is software made by Altera

Altera

Altera Corporation is a Silicon Valley manufacturer of PLDs . The company offered its first programmable logic device in 1984. PLDs can be reprogrammed during the design cycle as well as in the field to perform multiple functions, and they support a fairly fast design process...

 that automates connecting soft-hardware components to create a complete computer system that runs on any of its various FPGA

Field-programmable gate array

A field-programmable gate array is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by the customer or designer after manufacturing—hence "field-programmable"...

 chips. SOPC Builder incorporates a library of pre-made components (including the flagship Nios II

Nios II

Nios II is a 32-bit embedded-processor architecture designed specifically for the Altera family of FPGAs. Nios II incorporates many enhancements over the original Nios architecture, making it more suitable for a wider range of embedded computing applications, from DSP to system-control.Nios II is...

 soft processor, memory controller

Memory controller

The memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor...

s, interfaces, and peripherals) and an interface for incorporating custom ones. Interconnections are made though the Avalon bus. Bus arbitration, bus width matching, and even clock domain crossing

Clock domain crossing

A clock domain crossing , or simply clock crossing, is when a signal crosses from one clock domain into another. If a signal does not assert long enough and is not registered, it may appear asynchronous on the incoming clock boundary....

 are all handled automatically when SOPC Builder generates the system. A GUI

Gui

Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...

 is the only thing used to configure the soft-hardware components (which often have many options) and to specify the bus topology.

The resulting "virtual" system can then be connected to the outside world via the FPGA's programmable pins or connected internally to other soft compoments. The FPGA's pins are routed to connectors, such as for PCI or DDR, or -- as is often the case in embedded systems -- to other chips mounted on the same PCB.

Resource utilization on an FPGA hosting an SOPC Builder system is very modest by modern standards. FPGA devices supporting SOPC systems include almost all Altera FPGAs (and even some CPLDs) ranging from $5 to $5,000 in price.

See also

• SoC (System-on-a-chip)
  System-on-a-chip
  A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...
  
  
• SoPC (System on Programmable Chip)
• FPGA (Field-programmable gate array)
  Field-programmable gate array
  A field-programmable gate array is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by the customer or designer after manufacturing—hence "field-programmable"...
  
  
• reconfigurable computing
  Reconfigurable computing
  Reconfigurable computing is a computer architecture combining some of the flexibility of software with the high performance of hardware by processing with very flexible high speed computing fabrics like field-programmable gate arrays...
  
  
• Soft microprocessor
  Soft microprocessor
  A soft microprocessor is a microprocessor core that can be wholly implemented using logic synthesis...