Cyclone V SoC doubt

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, 

  I will have to program a RISC-V processor and I wanted to know if it's possible to access to ARM Cortex-A9 L1 and L2 caches or if I will have to use FPGA memory as cache. Also, I wanted to know what are the controllers that they provide for memory.   As I understand having a SoC FPGA allows you to use a high level functionality (with the processor) and also could use real-time operations or data processing using FPGA, am I wrong?   Thanks you so much.

[Altera_Forum]

Joel, 

 the A9's L1 & L2 caches can only be accessed/used by the A9.  Regards

[Altera_Forum]

Ericv, 

 In that case I will have to use RAM memory as an L1 and L2 caches for my project because ARM Cortex-A9 can't be programmed in VHDL.  As I understand having a SoC FPGA allow us to use a high computation algorithm in the processor while the FPGA is doing some data processing or controlling real time systems with a high bandwidth between both, am I wrong?   Thank you, Joel

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  Ericv,  In that case I will have to use RAM memory as an L1 and L2 caches for my project because ARM Cortex-A9 can't be programmed in VHDL.  As I understand having a SoC FPGA allow us to use a high computation algorithm in the processor while the FPGA is doing some data processing or controlling real time systems with a high bandwidth between both, am I wrong?  Thank you, Joel  --- Quote End ---    A SOC FPGA is just a hybrid combination of a CPU device and an FPGA device. There have been standalone ARM CPU chips for quite a while, as well as FPGA devices. The SOC (system on chip) basically just merges together a dual core ARM CPU chip and an FPGA (it is actually a lot more complex than that, but if you squint at a block diagram that is what it looks like).  ARM is the CPU of choice for SOCs (both Intel/Altera and Xilinx) because of the nature of ARM Co's business model of initially supplying design IP to customers rather than silicon devices. ARM also more or less has a lock on 'pure' SOC devices like those from Broadcom (think Raspberry PI) and Qualcomm (think Android smartphones).

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  A SOC FPGA is just a hybrid combination of a CPU device and an FPGA device. There have been standalone ARM CPU chips for quite a while, as well as FPGA devices. The SOC (system on chip) basically just merges together a dual core ARM CPU chip and an FPGA (it is actually a lot more complex than that, but if you squint at a block diagram that is what it looks like).  ARM is the CPU of choice for SOCs (both Intel/Altera and Xilinx) because of the nature of ARM Co's business model of initially supplying design IP to customers rather than silicon devices. ARM also more or less has a lock on 'pure' SOC devices like those from Broadcom (think Raspberry PI) and Qualcomm (think Android smartphones).  --- Quote End ---    Thank you so much.