An application-specific instruction-set processor (ASIP) is a component used in System-on-a-Chip design. The instruction set of an ASIP is tailored to benefit a specific application. This specialization of the core provides a tradeoff between the flexibility of a general purpose CPU and the performance of an ASIC.
Some ASIPs have a configurable instruction set. Usually, these cores are divided into two parts: static logic which defines a minimum ISA and configurable logic which can be used to design new instructions. The configurable logic can be programmed either in the field in a similar fashion to an FPGA or during the chip synthesis.
References
- Gert Goossens, Dirk Lanneer, Werner Geurts, Johan Van Praet (2006). Design of ASIPs in Multi-Processor SoCs using the Chess/Checkers Retargetable Tool Suite. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE. pp. 61–64. ISBN 1-4244-0621-8.
{{cite book}}:|journal=ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Paolo Ienne, Rainer Leupers (eds.) (2006). Customizable Embedded Processors. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN 978-0-12-369526-0.
{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help) - Matthias Gries, Kurt Keutzer (eds.) (2005). Building ASIPs: The Mescal Methodology. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-26057-0.
{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help) - Oliver Schliebusch, Heinrich Meyr, Rainer Leupers (2007). Optimized ASIP Synthesis from Architecture Description Language Models. Dordrecht: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4020-5685-7.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - M. Jain, M. Balakrishnan, A. Kumar (2001). "ASIP Design Methodologies: Survey and Issues". Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on VLSI Design. IEEE: 76–81.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)