Re: [PATCH] nios2: remove the architecture

[David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 17 May 2026 21:28:33 -0700
Ethan Nelson-Moore <enelsonmoore@gmail.com> wrote:

> The Nios II architecture is a soft-core architecture developed by
> Altera (since acquired by Intel) and intended to run on their FPGAs.
> 
> Licenses for the architecture have not been available for purchase
> since 2024 [1],

Except I think they got 'beaten up' by some telcos.
The Nios II gets used inside fpga for small cpu doing things that it would
be far to difficult to do in VHDL.
(I believe some mobile base stations fgpa embed a lot of them.)
These will have a small amount of code (maybe 4k - 64k) and a similarly
small amount of data memory along with access to fpga peripheral registers
and (optionally) host memory vie PCIe. No MMU, no cache (or rather the code/data
is in the cache memory but it isn't backed by anything), no branch predictor
(guaranteed cycle times), etc.
Intel suggested that RISCV could be used instead, but it isn't the same beast.
They didn't document the instruction timings nor how to add custom instructions.

The company I used to work for used 4 NIOS II inside an fpga.
The instruction timing for one is pretty critical, it has some code that
has to complete in 122 clocks (worst case).
Our solution was to spend a few man-weeks writing a compatible cpu!
I think it came out with fewer pipeline stalls (in particular it 'lost'
the one for a (predicted) taken branch).
The maximum clock frequency might be lower; but it is ok at 62.5MHz and the
higher 125MHz in just impossible for all sorts of reasons.

OTOH I really wouldn't run Linux on it!

-- David

> and support for it has been removed from GCC 15 [2],
> Buildroot [3], and QEMU [4].
> 
> Given all of these factors, it is time to remove Nios II support from
> the kernel. The maintainer stated in 2024 that they were planning to do
> so soon [5], but this did not come to pass.
> 
> Remove Nios II support from the kernel and move the former maintainer
> to CREDITS. Thank you, Dinh Nguyen, for maintaining Nios II support!
> 
> References:
> [1] https://docs.altera.com/v/u/docs/781327/is-discontinuing-ip-ordering-codes-listed-in-pdn2312-for-nios-ii-ip
> [2] https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commitdiff;h=e876acab6cdd84bb2b32c98fc69fb0ba29c81153
> [3] https://github.com/buildroot/buildroot/commit/6775ccc5a199d574ad70b5f79ec58cce97a07c6f
> [4] https://github.com/qemu/qemu/commit/6c3014858c4c0024dd0560f08a6eda0f92f658d6
> [5] https://sourceware.org/pipermail/newlib/2024/021083.html
> 
> Signed-off-by: Ethan Nelson-Moore <enelsonmoore@gmail.com>