Nios Insights | Sumble

What is Nios?

Nios is a family of embedded processors developed by Intel (formerly Altera). It's a soft-core processor, meaning it's implemented in the programmable logic of an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array). Nios processors are typically used in embedded systems applications requiring custom hardware acceleration or flexible I/O configurations. They allow designers to create custom instruction sets and peripherals tailored to specific application needs.

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What other technologies are related to Nios?

Nios Competitor Technologies

Microblaze

Microblaze is a soft-core processor from Xilinx, and competes with Nios as an embedded processor option for FPGAs.

mentioned alongside Nios in 36% (251) of relevant job posts

Microsemi

Microsemi (now part of Microchip) is an FPGA vendor and thus competes with Altera (now Intel), the original vendor of Nios.

mentioned alongside Nios in 8% (112) of relevant job posts

Xilinx

Xilinx is a major FPGA vendor and a competitor to Intel (Altera), providing alternative FPGA platforms for embedded systems.

mentioned alongside Nios in 2% (144) of relevant job posts

Lattice

Lattice Semiconductor is another FPGA vendor, and competes with Altera (Intel) and Xilinx in the FPGA market.

mentioned alongside Nios in 3% (79) of relevant job posts

ARM

ARM processors are a dominant force in embedded systems, offering high performance and low power, and are therefore a competitor to Nios II.

mentioned alongside Nios in 1% (250) of relevant job posts

RISC-V

RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) that can be used for soft-core processors in FPGAs, competing with Nios II.

mentioned alongside Nios in 1% (62) of relevant job posts

Nios Complementary Technologies

gigabit serial interfaces

Gigabit serial interfaces (like PCIe, Aurora, etc.) are often used to communicate with Nios systems, enabling high-speed data transfer.

mentioned alongside Nios in 65% (53) of relevant job posts

MGTs

Multi-gigabit transceivers (MGTs) are hardware blocks on FPGAs that implement high-speed serial interfaces. They are complementary to Nios because they provide the physical layer for communication protocols used by Nios systems.

mentioned alongside Nios in 54% (51) of relevant job posts

Altera

Altera (now Intel) developed the Nios processor. FPGAs provided by Altera are necessary to implement a Nios based system.

mentioned alongside Nios in 4% (122) of relevant job posts