AMBA® AXI4 (Advanced eXtensible Interface 4) is the fourth generation of the AMBA interface specification from ARM®. Xilinx Vivado Design Suite 2014 and ISE Design Suite 14 extends the Xilinx platform design methodology with the semiconductor industry's first AXI4 Compliant Plug-and-Play IP.
For customers relying on IP to meet their Time-to-Market requirements for UltraScale, 7-Series, Zynq-7000, Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 based designs, the AXI4 Plug-and-Play IP offers a single standard interface to make IP integration easier. Xilinx offers a broad set of AXI4 based IP with a single open standard interface across the Embedded, DSP, and Logic domains.
Xilinx worked closely with ARM to define the AXI4 specification for high-performance FPGA-based systems and designs. As part of our commitment to AXI4, Xilinx has adopted AXI4 as our next-generation IP interconnect standard for UltraScale, 7-Series, Zynq-7000, Spartan-6, Virtex-6 and future device families going forward
3rd party IP and EDA vendors everywhere have embraced the open AXI4 standard, helping to make it a widely adopted interface
Xilinx users will enjoy a wide range of benefits with the transition to AXI4 as a common user interface for IP. AXI4 is:
Additional benefits:
The AXI4 protocol is an update to AXI3 which is designed to enhance the performance and utilization of the interconnect when used by multiple masters. It includes the following enhancements:
AXI4-Lite is a subset of the AXI4 protocol intended for communication with simpler, smaller control register-style interfaces in components. The key features of the AXI4-Lite interfaces are:
The AXI4-Stream protocol is designed for unidirectional data transfers from master to slave with greatly reduced signal routing. Key features of the protocol are: