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When to use pipeline bridge

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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I am working on my first SOPC project and am confused about the use of pipeline bridges. Are there general guidelines that outline when they should be used? The Avalon Interface Specifications do not address this as far as I can tell. Should a pipeline bridge be used when connecting several slaves to a master or vice versa?

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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You don't have to use a bridge in those cases. When connecting several blocks together, the SOPC builder will create arbitration logic for you. But the more blocks you connect together, the more complex the arbitration logic will become. After a certain point it will have an impact on the highest frequency your design can run at. In that case placing pipeline bridges at strategic places will increase the frequency, at the expense of a higher latency.

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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There are general rules of thumb when to use bridges in this document: http://www.altera.com/literature/hb/nios2/edh_ed51007.pdf

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