ZPU (processor)

The ZPU is a microprocessor stack machine designed by Norwegian company Zylin AS to run supervisory code in electronic systems that include a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

The ZPU is a relatively recent stack machine with a small economic niche, and it has a growing number of users and implementations. It has been designed to require very small amounts of electronic logic, making more electronic logic available for other purposes in the FPGA. To make it easily usable, it has a port of the GNU Compiler Collection. This makes it much easier to apply than CPUs without compilers. Sacrificing speed in exchange for small size, it keeps the intermediate results of calculations in memory, in a push-down stack, rather than in registers.

Zylin Corp. made the ZPU open-source in 2008.