What is a soft processor?
A. FPGA processors can be “hard” or “soft.” Hard processors are implemented within the fixed silicon design on the FPGA, similar to discrete processors. On FPGAs, however, the CPU is surrounded by programmable logic (such as peripherals, memory interfaces, and so on) that you can configure to perform other functions. Hard processors typically offer higher CPU performance than soft processors, depending on factors such as processor architecture, clock rate, and process technology. As the name implies, hard processor performance and feature sets are fixed and typically offered only as a variation of a particular FPGA. The number and type of hard processors within an FPGA are also fixed as a function of that particular FPGA.
